Synopsis
Old friends and lovers reunite for a weekend in a secluded country home after spending decades apart.
They excavate old memories and pass clandestine judgments on the wildly divergent paths they’ve taken since their youth. But this isn’t just any reunion, and their conversations about the old days aren’t your typical reminiscences: After twenty-four years, Jörg, a convicted murderer and terrorist, has been released from prison. The announcement of his pardon will send shock waves through the country, but before the announcement, his friends—some of whom were Baader-Meinhof sympathizers or those who clung to them—gather for his first weekend of freedom. They have been summoned by Jörg’s devoted sister, Christiane, whose concern for her brother’s safety is matched only by the unrelenting zeal of Marko, a young man intent on having Jörg continue to fight for the cause.
Bernhard Schlink is at his finest as The Weekend unfolds. Passions are pitted against pragmatism, ideas against actions, and hopes against heartbreaking realities.
The Barnes & Noble Review
The Weekend examines the moral legacy of that era, when the so-called Red Army Faction (better known outside of Germany as the Baader-Meinhof Group) killed a total of thirty-four people and in 1977 brought the country to a high pitch of fear. Jörg, The Weekend's central character, is supposed to have been associated with this group; he was eventually convicted on four counts of murder and consigned to prison, where he stayed for twenty-four years. As the story begins, Jörg, now in late middle age, has been released on a presidential pardon. This pardon is supposed to symbolize reconciliation, the closing of the door on that particular national trauma.