Viscerally Real Queers, Dyke Processing, Kink, and Disability in Jane Eaton Hamilton’s novel WEEKEND

Oof. You know when a book feels almost too real? That was my experience with Jane Eaton Hamilton’s novel Weekend. I don’t know if I’ve read a novel about queer relationships that felt so viscerally authentic, ever. This is a testament to Hamilton’s sheer writing talent, of course, as well as technical finesse in the careful character and relationship development throughout. But Weekend is also a great example of a book that speaks to the power of #ownvoices writing.

There’s just no way an outsider who didn’t have deep, personal experiences with the intricacies of gender and sexual identities, kink, and disability the book is representing could ever write something that felt this real and complex. The book is not conforming to the “we’re-the-same-as-everybody-else” theory of queerness and it’s certainly not concerned with portraying queer people in a flattering light. What it does do is unflinchingly reveal us at our worst in some ways that all humans can be in relationships with each other and at our best in some ways that are very specific to the queer crip politics of the novel.

Weekend is, according to this review in The Vancouver Sun, a take on Raymod Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” I admittedly haven’t read Carver, but judging from its description as a “grim mediation on love,” that sounds just about right.

Hamilton’s novel is a snapshot of two queer couples spending the weekend in side by side cabins in that specifically Ontario construct of what Ontarians call “cottage country.” The two halves of each couple who own the property, Logan and Elliot, are—unsurprisingly—long ago exes, each there with their current partner. Logan’s partner is 10 years their senior, a woman named Ajax who has come out from BC to spend quality couple time. Ajax and Logan are still in what you might call “the honeymoon phase,” which means they’re having constant amazing sex but still don’t know important things about one another. Joe and Elliot are a long-term couple who have just had a baby together and are struggling not only with the daily exhaustion and effort of caring for a newborn but also deep buried relationship troubles.

Jane Eaton Hamilton / image via vancouversun.com

There’s a lot to revel in in Weekend, just purely from a representation angle. When was the last time you read a queer novel about people in middle age, let alone a novel that has extended sex scenes featuring queer people in their 40s and 50s? Older queers getting it on feels revolutionary in and of itself, but Hamilton also features a character who is disabled and black (Ajax has a heart condition and grew up in the Bahamas), a trans masculine character who uses they pronouns (Logan), a masculine-presenting polyamorous character who uses she pronouns (Elliot), and a kinky couple (Logan and Ajax). None of this feels forced or for the sake of diversity itself, but simply a portrayal of some real people with various intersecting identities.

As you’re probably guessing, this is a highly character and relationship driven novel. You know at the beginning that shit of many kinds is going to hit the fan for both couples. Hamilton takes you there slowly while letting you get to know all the characters, their dynamics, and histories. The only other work I can think of that has so much authentic dyke processing in it is Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For. Logan, Ajax, Joe, and Elliot talk about their gender and sexual identities (I found Ajax’s ruminations about her lesbian identity in the face of Logan’s in-flux gender identity particularly fascinating), sex, feelings, their exes, illness, and relationship practicalities. They talk, and talk, and talk.

Another gorgeous cover by Arsenal Pulp Press–can you see how the topography looks like a body?

Ajax was the most interesting character for me, as she’s negotiating multiple marginalized identities that she doesn’t share with her Logan: she’s disabled and black, as I already mentioned, and also grew up poor/working class and has lived an adult life living mostly as a kind of starving artist. She has to decide how much and what and when to tell Logan, especially because their relationship is new. At one point when Logan stumbles upon a tangle of race and class assumptions they hold based on their perceptions about the Bahamas, Ajax has to outright tell them: “There is some awful something happening right now, right here, that I am just going to cross out because I don’t want to get into it with you. Not this weekend. Can we defer?” She thinks later: “Quintessentially, she and Logan had almost nothing in common. Which had essentially no bearing on love.” As a side note: I think I also liked Ajax the most because I deeply identified with her, a Vancouverite, thinking this about Lake Ontario: “Ajax keeping her lips pressed tight about the lake’s basic wrongness (pretending it was an ocean).”

Weekend is a deeply thought-provoking novel. It doesn’t shy away from the sometimes harsh realities of the characters’ lives in the same way it exposes unflinchingly but compassionately their sometimes massive imperfections. It’s not the kind of book about relationships that will “make you believe in love.” But it will, I think, make many readers feel less alone and affect many readers greatly, on both emotional and intellectual levels. Weekend is perhaps the queer book you didn’t know you needed so much.

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