Charlotte Wood captures the feminist zeitgeist again in The Weekend – The Guardian

When Charlotte Wood finished writing her furious tour de force, The Natural Way of Things, she declared that for her sanity she would next write a lighter, funnier novel. And so she has in a way. What could possibly be disturbing in a comedy about a group of ageing female friends?

For readers who discovered Wood through The Natural Way of Things, her new novel, The Weekend, may surprise. Those who relished the brilliant dystopia about a disparate group of young women imprisoned in the Australian desert to protect their sexual abusers might expect another diatribe against misogyny. Those who shied away from the bleak fable will wonder if they can open their eyes. Both, if they put aside preconceptions, will enjoy this playful and moving feminist fairytale.

The Natural Way of Things brought Wood sensational success: an Australian bestseller, published internationally, winner of the 2016 Stella prize, a Prime Ministers Literary award, Indie Book of the Year, and shortlistings for the Miles Franklin award, among others.

The novel was both sharply contemporary and timeless in its portrayal of women under duress. Wood perfectly captured the zeitgeist, anticipating not only the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwoods 1985 novel, The Handmaids Tale, but the entire #MeToo movement.

Many writers stall at the challenge of how to proceed from such acclaim. Wood has wisely not tried to outdo her own shock tactics. The Weekend, her sixth novel, returns to the qualities that had already built an admiring readership for her earlier books while being a more domesticated sister to its wild predecessor.

Families, in a broad sense, have always driven her tightly focused dramas. The dynamics of The Children and Animal People, a loosely linked pair of novels about sibling tensions, evolved into the unwilling sisterhood of The Natural Way of Things and the fractured friendships of The Weekend.

The Weekend is more Big Chill than Handmaids Tale, with a dash of Big Little Lies and an echo of Atwoods The Robber Bride. Wood uses the classic theatrical set-up of a house party to concentrate tension in a tight space. If she were Agatha Christie this would lead to murder, but her characters emotional blow-ups are closer to those in David Williamsons Dons Party or Rachel Wards recent film Palm Beach (co-written with Joanna Murray-Smith).

Woods plot brings together three women, longtime friends in their 70s, for three days over Christmas at the beach house owned by a fourth woman who has died. They are there not to celebrate but to empty the house for sale. Along with the junk they unearth old conflicts and a big secret. The women begin to question why they were ever friends.

There is Jude, a former restaurateur, the martyr and the boss, who cooks fabulous meals and wonders why the others cant arrive on time. Shes hanging out for her traditional week in the house with her wealthy lover after the women leave.

There is Wendy, a fading feminist academic, who impossibly but surely looks like Patrick White as she ages, missing her dead husband, alienated from her adult children, devoted to her ancient dog.

And theres Adele, an out-of-work actress with a great body (for your age) and no money, just evicted from her girlfriends home.

The beach house perches on the steep block like a stage, high on its poles, its murky olive weatherboards blurring into the surrounding bush and the pale sky. The women enter one by one via an inclinator, a rusting platform that will later deliver the inevitable disruptors of the weekend in operatic style.

Sylvie, the late owner of the house, is an abstract presence. Her belongings reveal less about her (and her absent partner, Gail) than about the women sorting them. Jude methodically cleans the kitchen while Wendy tosses everything into garbage bags and Adele procrastinates among piles of clothes and records.

The true fourth member of the ensemble is Wendys labradoodle. Demented and deaf, Finn spends the weekend pacing, peeing and threatening Judes cast-off white sofa.

Animals are central to Woods work, as a mirror and a moral test for humans. Here the likeness is explicit: Finns ailments confront the women, whose aching joints and straining hearts blink warnings of mortality. Impatient Jude insists it would be kinder to euthanise him, but she also sees Sylvie in his blank face. There are lessons in his simple creatureliness.

Wood, a mere youngster in her 50s, researched the biology of old age during a fellowship at the University of Sydney and nimbly inhabits these bodies and minds. Symbols are everywhere, from the hose that reminds Jude of her colonoscopy to Sylvies copy of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, which Wendy tosses out as very old hat.

Food also plays a visceral part in the relationships, as usual in Woods fiction as well as her essay collection, Love and Hunger. Every morsel is significant, from the predictable stock cubes and anchovies, tins of lentils in Sylvies pantry, to Judes carefully roasted chicken, and the Wild Hibiscus Flowers in Syrup that Wendy drops into each champagne glass like a blood clot.

Tension builds through an accumulation of intimate details. The Weekend is perhaps a more serious comedy than Wood originally intended because she cant help seeing vulnerability and injustice.

Ageism is another face of sexism: older women are shut out of work, love and financial security; men are still dominant, and now young people are patronising. I know what sourdough bread is, Jude tells a waitress who tries to explain, resting her hands on her knees as you might do when speaking to a pre-schooler. Later, in an allusion dense with meaning, Jude will pick up a mans plate like a waitress, like a handmaid.

Woods disarming lightness of tone also teases the womens many foibles, dancing between empathic close-up and wry distance. This creates some hilarious scenes, such as Adeles elated dawn walk:

She was all body, and at the same time she possessed no body at all.

Except, resting here at last on the low stone wall, her strong heart pulsing, panting here beside the slopping water, she very much needed to wee.

Adeles encounter minutes later with theatre director Joe Gillespie and terrier Coco, the companions of a rival actress, is painfully funny and launches the novels stormy climactic scenes. Behind the laughs there is deep humanity, intellect and spirituality, qualities that mark The Weekend as much more than old-chook lit.

Baby boomers and others will recognise themselves in one or more of these believable characters, whom Wood deftly distinguishes without turning them into caricatures.

Theres a feast of ideas for friends and book clubs to discuss. The Weekend is a novel about decluttering and real estate, about the geometry of friendship, about sexual politics, and about how we change, survive and ultimately die. Wood has captured the zeitgeist again, with a mature ease that entertains even as it nudges our prejudices.

The Weekend by Charlotte Wood is out now through Allen & Unwin

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Charlotte Wood captures the feminist zeitgeist again in The Weekend - The Guardian