This is a story of how we live our queer lesbian lives now.
Logan and Ajax are driving from the city to a cottage where Logan plans to propose to Ajax on her fiftieth birthday. Next door, Joe and Elliott just welcomed a newborn baby girl into their lives; amid the exhaustion and flood of emotions, it becomes clear that something is awry. Four lesbians at two adjacent weekend homes provide a window into the complexities, joys, and sorrows of contemporary queer women's lives in Jane Eaton Hamilton's stunningly beautiful new novel, Weekend.
Hamilton's characters are quirky and compelling. Logan, Ajax, Joe, and Elliott are people I want to know. They are at turns familiar and unfamiliar. Balancing comfort with surprise, Hamilton renders characters that leap off the page. Often, the people in Weekend are queer like women I have known; always, they are women I want to know.
While Weekend is primarily a character-driven novel focused on the excavation of the psyches of all four of the main queer women, the plot is rooted in the real lives of lesbians today and thus gripping. How often are the realities of lesbian and queer women's lives today at the center of creative work? Not often enough which is part of why Weekend is so exciting. Hamilton takes seriously the lives of lesbians, queer women, and trans women, and the issues facing us; she animates our lives in this book to great effect.
If character and plot are not enough for you to pick up this book, Weekend packs in hot, queer sex as well. With care and sensitivity, Hamilton renders extraordinary sequences of lesbian lust sex and desire with queer women in human bodies. In Weekend, sex is not reserved for young, beautiful, able-bodied people; sex is for everyone, and Hamilton celebrates the realities of bodies. Readers will revel in scenes where Hamilton gently, fiercely, lovingly, and passionately brings women together for sex, lust, love, and care.
Hamilton may not be familiar to many readers in the United States. She has a long writing career, however, as a poet and the author of short stories. Weekend is her first novel, and what extraordinary one. It captures the complexity of lesbian/queer women's lives in our current context. The achievement of Weekend demonstrates the importance of investing in writers over a long career. This is a book I have been waiting to read. It is a book I enjoyed every single minute of reading. It is a book I want to share with everyone. I commend Weekend. This is a story of how we live our queer lesbian lives now. Do not miss it.
Weekend by Jane Eaton Hamilton is available from Arsenal Pulp Press for $17.95