What do you think?
Rate this book
Week With No Friday
Money, Marijuana and a girl named Martha - Low-life and high-jinks South of the Border
After twelve years in Mexico, Ben Warner seemed shamelessly happy just sponging off his neighbors, finding consolation and occasional inspiration in alcohol, pot, and any passable woman who came along. The locals found him muy simpatico, and so did visiting schoolteacher Martha McKenzie, who speedily found him sharing her bed -- and her checkbook.
But behind the amusing and eccentric exterior, Ben Warner was a man struggling desperately just to keep going, to make good the wasted years. With the unexpected reappearance of his glamorous ex-wife, the loose ends of his existence suddenly begin to unravel, with results that are as intensely moving as human experience can be.
"Downright irresistible" - Chicago Sun-Times
"A marvelously successful novel" - Book Week
"There is much that is affecting and witty in this first novel, which examines the pangs of a creative personality in exile" - Kirkus Reviews
After twelve years in Mexico, Ben Warner seemed shamelessly happy just sponging off his neighbors, finding consolation and occasional inspiration in alcohol, pot, and any passable woman who came along. The locals found him muy simpatico, and so did visiting schoolteacher Martha McKenzie, who speedily found him sharing her bed -- and her checkbook.
But behind the amusing and eccentric exterior, Ben Warner was a man struggling desperately just to keep going, to make good the wasted years. With the unexpected reappearance of his glamorous ex-wife, the loose ends of his existence suddenly begin to unravel, with results that are as intensely moving as human experience can be.
"Downright irresistible" - Chicago Sun-Times
"A marvelously successful novel" - Book Week
"There is much that is affecting and witty in this first novel, which examines the pangs of a creative personality in exile" - Kirkus Reviews
254 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 20, 2023
Leí este libro en uno de los poquísimos ejemplares que se imprimieron de la traducción hizo que mi querido tío Agustín Velarde, residente del hermoso pueblo mexicano de Ajijic, cercano al Lago Chapala. Me gustó pero lo tendré que releer tarde o temprano.
October 14, 2012
It's a real pleasure to discover a book like this, a book so of its time that you really learn something about a previous era. It's also nice to help rediscover an author so utterly forgotten that he's not even listed in Goodreads; this book was actually quite acclaimed when it was published in 1962, and Willard Marsh was pretty well published (Esquire, and so on), but I had to add Week with no Friday to Goodreads myself.
It's about a down-on-his-luck would-be playwright with the worst knack for just missing his big break since ... well, since me! He's been bumming around in a little Mexican tourist/expatriat town, working on his Act 3 and living off his charm and the dwindling income from a play his agent managed to sell to Samuel French some years back, drinking too much, smoking weed. When the book opens, his financial luck has taken another turn for the worse; he finds himself falling in love with Martha, a young vacationing teacher whom he'd intended to grift; and then his glamorous ex-wife turns up. The book starts out slow, and in spite of its sub-titlte (Money, Marijuana and a Girl Named Martha) it has just one marijuana-smoking scene (which is ridiculously overwrought) but it is beautifully written, a well-described sense of place, and it goes in unexpected directions. By the end, the book is downright gripping and very moving. The characters are memorable and compelling. I really liked it that Martha isn't beautiful; in most books, she would have been. I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 because it starts out a little slowly. Anyway, an amazing book to discover, and I hope others do as well.
It's about a down-on-his-luck would-be playwright with the worst knack for just missing his big break since ... well, since me! He's been bumming around in a little Mexican tourist/expatriat town, working on his Act 3 and living off his charm and the dwindling income from a play his agent managed to sell to Samuel French some years back, drinking too much, smoking weed. When the book opens, his financial luck has taken another turn for the worse; he finds himself falling in love with Martha, a young vacationing teacher whom he'd intended to grift; and then his glamorous ex-wife turns up. The book starts out slow, and in spite of its sub-titlte (Money, Marijuana and a Girl Named Martha) it has just one marijuana-smoking scene (which is ridiculously overwrought) but it is beautifully written, a well-described sense of place, and it goes in unexpected directions. By the end, the book is downright gripping and very moving. The characters are memorable and compelling. I really liked it that Martha isn't beautiful; in most books, she would have been. I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 because it starts out a little slowly. Anyway, an amazing book to discover, and I hope others do as well.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews