Charlotte Wood is the author of six novels and two books of nonfiction. Her 2016 novel The Natural Way of Things won the Stella Prize, the Indie Book of the Year, and the Novel of the Year in her native Australia, and was joint winner of the Australian Prime Minister s Literary Award for Fiction. Her 2020 novel, The Weekend, is an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Stella Prize, and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. In 2019 Wood was made a Member of the Order of Australia for significant services to literature.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM: Charlotte Wood is a highly awarded, major commercial success in her native Australia. Her previous novel won multiple Australian literary prizes and received praise from everyone from Liane Moriarty and Paula Hawkins to NPR and The Ecomomist.HUGE OPPORTUNITY: Still, only one of Wood's books has been published in the United States, by Europa. That book signalled Wood's literary importance and commercial appeal. This is the book to break her out. The Weekend is a commercial conceit, delivering the sharp wit and layered thinking that Wood is known for internationally.GREAT HOOK: This book combines smart, literary writing; a delicious, beach-front setting; and a story about lifelong female friendship, loyalty, betrayal, infidelity, aging, grief, pets, family-all with a little Australian real estate porn.UNFORGETTABLE FRIENDS: Jude, Wendy, and Adele are complex, spirited characters, whose interior lives are beautifully depicted on the page, and whose relationships with each other are loving and prickly and nuanced.

#1 International Bestseller
Shortlisted for the 2020 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award * Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2020 * Longlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Award

The Big Chill with a dash of Big Little Lies . . . Knife-sharp and deeply alive. The Guardian (London)

An insightful, poignant, and fiercely honest novel about female friendship and female aging. Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award winning author of The Friend

Friendship, ambition, love, sexual politics and death: it s all here in one sharp, funny, heartbreaking, and gorgeously written package. I loved it. Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train


Three women in their seventies reunite for one last, life-changing weekend in the beach house of their late friend.
 
Four older women have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank, and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three.

They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur; Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual; and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they ve remained close all these years, the grieving women gather at Sylvie s old beach house not for festivities this time, but to clean it out before it is sold. Can they survive together without her?

Without Sylvie to maintain the group s delicate equilibrium, frustrations build and painful memories press in. Fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests, and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface and threatens to sweep away their friendship for good.

The Weekend explores growing old and growing up, and what happens when we re forced to uncover the lies we tell ourselves. Sharply observed and excruciatingly funny, this is a jewel of a book: a celebration of tenderness and friendship from an award-winning writer.