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The Twoweeks
A novel of love and lust, memory and desire. Cal and Lara are happily married, though (problematically) not to one another. And though they came of age in the sexual wilderness of the 1960's, neither is seeking to expand any sexual horizons now, 10 years later.Nevertheless, they find themselves in what each presumes to be an altogether trite situation--committed to monogamy and fidelity, yet so powerfully drawn together that their "Fall" seems inevitable.The way out proposed by Lara, a "Twoweeks" carved out of their normal, predictable lives, is intended of course to take two weeks and be done with. What happens to these attractive, lively, storm-tossed souls before, during, and after The Twoweeks is the subject of Larry Duberstein's engaging new novel.Duberstein's first novel, The Marriage Hearse, while rife with surface irony and wit, was described by The New York Times Book Review as "above all a love story and a rather touching one at that." The same can be said of Duberstein's 8th novel, The Twoweeks, though it travels an arc of over 30 years, where The Marriage Hearse takes place in the course of a single white night. The Twoweeks too is "above all a love story" and, like most good ones, it is as much about the dilemmas of love as the romance.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2011
51 people want to read
About the author
Larry Duberstein
14 books4 followersThere will be more here soon on Larry Duberstein's extraordinary new novel Five Bullets, forthcoming in November. Mr. Duberstein is the author of 9 previous volumes of fiction, including The Marriage Hearse (New York Times New & Noteworthy), Carnovsky's Retreat (New American Writing Award), The Alibi Breakfast (Publishers Weekly starred notice), The Handsome Sailor (New York Times Notable Book) and The Day The Bozarts Died (BookSense Notable Book).
In his other incarnation as a human being, Larry is the father of three beautiful daughters, an accomplished woodworker and builder, an avid tennis and basketball player, and the person who walks Alice Brownstein, the wonder dog.
***************************************
On November 20, FIVE BULLETS will be published by Brimstone Corner Press. This novel about one man's experience of the Holocaust and its lifelong aftermath, has been called a "daring, elegant, introspective masterpiece" (Theodore Rosengarten) and "haunting as it is compelling" (Small Press Reviews). The protagonist Karel Bondy is "a memorable, complex character in a powerful story of war, survival, and healing" (Kirkus Reviews). Foreword Reviews adds that "each vignette of this one man's two lives is balanced on a foundation of masterful writing."
But don't settle for blurbs. Please visit the Brimstone Corner Press website to read these glowing notices in their entirety.
In his other incarnation as a human being, Larry is the father of three beautiful daughters, an accomplished woodworker and builder, an avid tennis and basketball player, and the person who walks Alice Brownstein, the wonder dog.
***************************************
On November 20, FIVE BULLETS will be published by Brimstone Corner Press. This novel about one man's experience of the Holocaust and its lifelong aftermath, has been called a "daring, elegant, introspective masterpiece" (Theodore Rosengarten) and "haunting as it is compelling" (Small Press Reviews). The protagonist Karel Bondy is "a memorable, complex character in a powerful story of war, survival, and healing" (Kirkus Reviews). Foreword Reviews adds that "each vignette of this one man's two lives is balanced on a foundation of masterful writing."
But don't settle for blurbs. Please visit the Brimstone Corner Press website to read these glowing notices in their entirety.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 6, 2011
Two weeks, a fortnight, a vacation, short time, long time… There are so many different ways to look at two weeks—almost as many as there are different ways to look at love—parent, lover, child, temptation, spouse… Larry Duberstein’s novel, The Twoweeks, views a short vacation from life and its aftermath through the eyes of two people in love. They’re happily married, but not to each other, as they take a two-week break. Drawn together—was it love at first sight? Living together—did they know what they were letting themselves in for? Remembering two weeks and their longer implications—but what happened next? The author pulls readers along through conversation, journal and memory. Agreement and disagreement weave a pleasing tapestry. And two very different points of view encompass past present and future in a fortnight’s short landscape.
Lara’s a poet, shaping her memories with words, carving thoughts into poems. Cal, by contrast, is an actor, equally creative but driven to play a part, define a position and live the role. As the novel opens, a glimpse is given of the future while both stand off-stage. Then the reader, all unknowing yet almost knowing, is drawn into memories written on Lara’s paper or carved in Cal’s heart. Two weeks play out on the pages of a lyrically honest and descriptive journal. Accuracy is argued and redefined as Cal and Lara recall playing a script that neither planned.
Just how big a risk can one take with love, and how long a journey will set us free from it, if we want to be free? This novel explores the fluidity of love that, once mixed, cannot be restored again to its separate parts. Memory’s uncertainties match the changing characters of places experienced in different company. And a whole world of people is affected by the rising tide of two isolated weeks.
Oddly different and enthralling, the writing creates scenery, ocean and love’s dilemmas with equal power and conviction, leaving the reader pondering paths not taken and destinations reached together.
Disclosure: I received a bound galley of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Lara’s a poet, shaping her memories with words, carving thoughts into poems. Cal, by contrast, is an actor, equally creative but driven to play a part, define a position and live the role. As the novel opens, a glimpse is given of the future while both stand off-stage. Then the reader, all unknowing yet almost knowing, is drawn into memories written on Lara’s paper or carved in Cal’s heart. Two weeks play out on the pages of a lyrically honest and descriptive journal. Accuracy is argued and redefined as Cal and Lara recall playing a script that neither planned.
Just how big a risk can one take with love, and how long a journey will set us free from it, if we want to be free? This novel explores the fluidity of love that, once mixed, cannot be restored again to its separate parts. Memory’s uncertainties match the changing characters of places experienced in different company. And a whole world of people is affected by the rising tide of two isolated weeks.
Oddly different and enthralling, the writing creates scenery, ocean and love’s dilemmas with equal power and conviction, leaving the reader pondering paths not taken and destinations reached together.
Disclosure: I received a bound galley of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
August 2, 2014
39th book read in 2014.
Number 379 out of 383 on my all time book list.
Follow the link below to see my video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2See...
Number 379 out of 383 on my all time book list.
Follow the link below to see my video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2See...
April 19, 2019
My review for this quaint but ponderous novel was published by The New York Journal of Books in 2011. I reproduce it here:
A pitch for a story: Two characters, unhappy in their own marriages, acknowledge their mutual attraction and begin a torrid love affair. After some time they break it off. Recriminations and regrets follow. Life-altering decisions pertaining to futures must be made. Welfare of children gets balanced against power of desire. We turn the pages anxiously to see whether they follow their heads or their hearts.
Given its familiarity, authors have extracted an impressive amount from that basic story arc, but one wonders at this point: How much is left to say? What possible variations remain unexplored?
Larry Duberstein’s The Twoweeks does its best to add a new perspective, a classy but ponderous effort that compares the lust of an affair with the cool aftermath of memory. Though parts of the novel feel labored over, it succeeds in crafting a literary domestic romance that radiates goodwill.
After a prologue whose existence is not immediately obvious, we are introduced to Cal Byerly and Lara Cleary, set to revisit a period 30 years before when they carried on a preplanned affair they call The Twoweeks.
Lara had kept a journal of their fortnight together, and together again they pit what the journal says against their memories, often finding gaps and discrepancies.
Cal had met Lara through his wife Winnie, as the two women had long been friends. Along with Lara’s husband Ian, the four frequently spend time together, and a nascent attraction buds between Cal and Lara. Eventually Lara proposes The Twoweeks, which despite being done with her husband’s consent, still provides her with the requisite amount of doubt:
“To Lara, it could be confusing. She believed in fidelity, yet at the same time fidelity could be made to seem almost silly. Small-minded, outmoded . . . there were forces in the culture which made it feel that way. You could lose track of who you were, or who you meant to be.”
Her offer is delivered to Cal as an ultimatum: He can either spend these two weeks with her or the relationship will never be consummated. With his marriage to Winnie on the rocks, Cal devises a strategy by which Winnie will be allowed to take a week or two off from the family (the Byerlys have two kids), and upon her return Cal would then get his own respite as well.
And so The Twoweeks begins. Though Lara sees it as purely temporary, a way to work out her own confused feelings, Cal clearly hopes their fortnight is just the beginning. When The Twoweeks ends, Lara insists that she and Cal go their separate ways. The remainder of the novel gauges how successful she is.
The lion’s share of the narrative is given to Lara’s contemporaneous account of their affair, with their older selves reflecting back on it three decades later. It is the most dynamic chapter in the novel, and it is all recounted by Mr. Duberstein with the utmost affection for his two protagonists.
Though Lara entered The Twoweeks with reservations, it is easy to believe in their attraction, and even easier to believe they would effortlessly retain their playful, gently combative banter. That they can speak in a shorthand—Lara’s ultimatum to Cal is referred to as The Sentence; a further incident after The Twoweeks is dubbed The Two Hours—is endearing.
The Twoweeks also sometimes feels too cute, almost stagy (although Cal, as an actor, would be accustomed to ascribing lofty names to parts of their story), and some readers may have trouble with some of the overstuffed prose.
The Twoweeks is not meant as an oversexed romance or a suspenseful melodrama. It is a sensitive, languid (perhaps too languid: despite its slim length the novel drags in places) story that is assured in what it wants to say. It is a novel written by a veteran author who is not trying to dazzle with literary showmanship but with intimate storytelling.
A pitch for a story: Two characters, unhappy in their own marriages, acknowledge their mutual attraction and begin a torrid love affair. After some time they break it off. Recriminations and regrets follow. Life-altering decisions pertaining to futures must be made. Welfare of children gets balanced against power of desire. We turn the pages anxiously to see whether they follow their heads or their hearts.
Given its familiarity, authors have extracted an impressive amount from that basic story arc, but one wonders at this point: How much is left to say? What possible variations remain unexplored?
Larry Duberstein’s The Twoweeks does its best to add a new perspective, a classy but ponderous effort that compares the lust of an affair with the cool aftermath of memory. Though parts of the novel feel labored over, it succeeds in crafting a literary domestic romance that radiates goodwill.
After a prologue whose existence is not immediately obvious, we are introduced to Cal Byerly and Lara Cleary, set to revisit a period 30 years before when they carried on a preplanned affair they call The Twoweeks.
Lara had kept a journal of their fortnight together, and together again they pit what the journal says against their memories, often finding gaps and discrepancies.
Cal had met Lara through his wife Winnie, as the two women had long been friends. Along with Lara’s husband Ian, the four frequently spend time together, and a nascent attraction buds between Cal and Lara. Eventually Lara proposes The Twoweeks, which despite being done with her husband’s consent, still provides her with the requisite amount of doubt:
“To Lara, it could be confusing. She believed in fidelity, yet at the same time fidelity could be made to seem almost silly. Small-minded, outmoded . . . there were forces in the culture which made it feel that way. You could lose track of who you were, or who you meant to be.”
Her offer is delivered to Cal as an ultimatum: He can either spend these two weeks with her or the relationship will never be consummated. With his marriage to Winnie on the rocks, Cal devises a strategy by which Winnie will be allowed to take a week or two off from the family (the Byerlys have two kids), and upon her return Cal would then get his own respite as well.
And so The Twoweeks begins. Though Lara sees it as purely temporary, a way to work out her own confused feelings, Cal clearly hopes their fortnight is just the beginning. When The Twoweeks ends, Lara insists that she and Cal go their separate ways. The remainder of the novel gauges how successful she is.
The lion’s share of the narrative is given to Lara’s contemporaneous account of their affair, with their older selves reflecting back on it three decades later. It is the most dynamic chapter in the novel, and it is all recounted by Mr. Duberstein with the utmost affection for his two protagonists.
Though Lara entered The Twoweeks with reservations, it is easy to believe in their attraction, and even easier to believe they would effortlessly retain their playful, gently combative banter. That they can speak in a shorthand—Lara’s ultimatum to Cal is referred to as The Sentence; a further incident after The Twoweeks is dubbed The Two Hours—is endearing.
The Twoweeks also sometimes feels too cute, almost stagy (although Cal, as an actor, would be accustomed to ascribing lofty names to parts of their story), and some readers may have trouble with some of the overstuffed prose.
The Twoweeks is not meant as an oversexed romance or a suspenseful melodrama. It is a sensitive, languid (perhaps too languid: despite its slim length the novel drags in places) story that is assured in what it wants to say. It is a novel written by a veteran author who is not trying to dazzle with literary showmanship but with intimate storytelling.
November 30, 2011
Haven't received the book yet, I just received notice I had won. 10/17/11
Received my copy Saturday, 10/29/11 and hope to start soon. Have 2 more in front of it.
Started last night, 11/16/11
Finished 11/29/11
Cal is married to Winnie. Lara is married to Ian. Winnie and Lara are friends. Somehow, Cal and Lara fall in love and have "The Twoweeks".
First I didn't really care for it. The book was well written and I loved the frequent references to music, books, etc. I didn't like the premise or the story at all. One cool side note, right after I read the part of Kristofferson, and Johny Cash singing Sunday Morning Coming Down, it came on the radio! Okay, back to the book.
Received my copy Saturday, 10/29/11 and hope to start soon. Have 2 more in front of it.
Started last night, 11/16/11
Finished 11/29/11
Cal is married to Winnie. Lara is married to Ian. Winnie and Lara are friends. Somehow, Cal and Lara fall in love and have "The Twoweeks".
First I didn't really care for it. The book was well written and I loved the frequent references to music, books, etc. I didn't like the premise or the story at all. One cool side note, right after I read the part of Kristofferson, and Johny Cash singing Sunday Morning Coming Down, it came on the radio! Okay, back to the book.
November 29, 2011
I'm sorry to say I did not like this book. I could not finish it. I was very excited about it. It sounded great, but it lacked.
A friend said I shouldn't review if I didn't finish the book. I'm sorry, I tried. But some time ago, I bought a book that sounded so wonderful. I couldn't get into it. I had bought it, so I didn't want to just get rid of it. So I put it aside. Sometiime later I tried it again. After having that book 20 years I gave up and told myself I wouldn't do that again.
At first this book was confusing the way it moved around. I got use to it. But it just didn't seem to be going anywhere. I may try again later, maybe not.
A friend said I shouldn't review if I didn't finish the book. I'm sorry, I tried. But some time ago, I bought a book that sounded so wonderful. I couldn't get into it. I had bought it, so I didn't want to just get rid of it. So I put it aside. Sometiime later I tried it again. After having that book 20 years I gave up and told myself I wouldn't do that again.
At first this book was confusing the way it moved around. I got use to it. But it just didn't seem to be going anywhere. I may try again later, maybe not.
October 31, 2011
Got this book in the giveaway. I am currently reading it and will post review as soon as I'm done.
Ok, I am done. After having to literally force myself to finish this book in order to give it a fair chance because it was a giveaway, I can say it was not worth the time. Maybe there are people out there that can enjoy it, but I couldn't. The author drags out descriptions and beats them senseless to where I was sitting there saying, enough already. I really thought I would enjoy this book, but it should have been a pass.
Ok, I am done. After having to literally force myself to finish this book in order to give it a fair chance because it was a giveaway, I can say it was not worth the time. Maybe there are people out there that can enjoy it, but I couldn't. The author drags out descriptions and beats them senseless to where I was sitting there saying, enough already. I really thought I would enjoy this book, but it should have been a pass.
November 28, 2011
Really enjoyed this. Reminded me very much of Laurie Colwin's wonderfully written tales of sympathetic infidelity, set in the freewheeling seventies. It really was a different time. Funny to think America has grown so much more conservative in the last couple of decades. Like Colwin's books, this one combines intricate and intimate realism with bucketloads of charm - though Duberstein is more charming, and definitely funnier.
June 9, 2016
The first chapter of the book caught my interest. I expected the following chapters to be about this road trip. Unfortunately they did not. I waded through until the last chapter when this trip again appeared but that was the end of the book. Through the middle of the book I kept waiting for something to happen but was disappointed.
March 7, 2012
I received this book from goodreads.com for free. It was a well-written book. The subject matter makes is hard for me to be fair because of personal experiences, but I have passed this book on to 2 others that really enjoyed it and have since become huge fans of goodreads.
February 26, 2012
I received this book from the "First Reads" giveaways. I really had a hard time finishing this book. Too many details, not enough real character development. Plot line was confusing at times.
January 13, 2012
this book was okay it wasn't horrible but it wasn't great I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads
February 16, 2013
Blah, blah,blah....... What a waste of time!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews