The Weekend

Vapid dialogue and a uniformly languid cast of characters doom this sporadically insightful novella that explores themes of bereavement, change, love, loneliness and the quest for connection. A year after the AIDS death of a loved one, three friends are reunited for a weekend at the upstate New York country house where they used to convene in summers past. John and Marian, half-brother and sister-in-law of the late Tony, have permanently fled Manhattan for a life of leisure in this idyllic riverfront home. Tony's lover, Lyle, an art critic and lecturer, pays his first visit since Tony's death, bringing along his new young paramour, Robert, an aspiring painter. Stymied by insurmountable tensions and inner conflicts, this mildly neurotic group fails miserably to resuscitate past contentments. Aging Europhile neighbor Laura Ponti, whom Marian invites to dinner, faces similar disappointment in her efforts to invigorate ties with her daughter. Cameron ( Leap Year ) interposes vignettes from Tony's lifetime between pieces of the currently developing plot and, through frequent shifts in point of view, takes the reader into the listless mind of each of his characters. The contrast between his rather elegant prose and their insipid, unconvincing speech, however, contributes to an unfortunate emphasis on explication at the expense of illustration, leaving the reader with little attachment to this sorrowful group of survivors. (May)