• The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
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The Woman Upstairs

'Messud's prose grabs the reader by the collar' New York Times Book Review
  • Author
    • Claire Messud
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BY THE AUTHOR OF THE 2024 BOOKER LONGLISTED THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY


'Messud is a breathtaking writer . . . a beautiful - and beautifully sustained - howl of fresh, fierce, furious rage'INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Nora Eldridge has always been a good girl: a good daughter, colleague, friend, employee. She teaches at an elementary school where the children and the parents adore her; but her real passion is her art, which she makes alone, unseen.

One day Reza Shahid appears in her classroom: eight years old, a perfect, beautiful boy. Reza's father has a fellowship at Harvard and his mother is a glamorous and successful installation artist. Nora is admitted into their charmed circle, and everything is transformed. Or so she believes. Liberation from her old life is not quite what it seems, and she is about to suffer a betrayal more monstrous than anything she could have imagined.

'Riveting . . . Messud is adept at evoking complex psychological territory'NEW YORKER

'Messud's prose is a delight . . . addictive, memorable, intense' LIONEL SHRIVER, FINANCIAL TIMES

'This is a faultless, suspenseful novel'MAIL ON SUNDAY

'Quietly menacing'GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

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  • Published: Jan 02 2014
  • Pages: 320
  • 198 x 160mm
  • ISBN: 9781844087334
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Press Reviews

  • Good Housekeeping
    Quietly menacing
  • New Yorker
    Riveting . . . Messud is adept at evoking complex psychological territory . . . She is interested in the identities that women construct for themselves, and in the maddening chasm that often divides intensity of aspiration from reality of achievement
  • Independent on Sunday
    Messud is a breathtaking writer . . . a beautiful - and beautifully sustained - howl of fresh, fierce, furious rage

  • Lionel Shriver

    Financial Times
    Messud's prose is a delight . . . addictive, memorable, intense
  • Mail on Sunday
    This is a faultless, suspenseful novel
  • Independent on Sunday
    Messud is a breathtaking writer ... a beautiful - and beautifully sustained - howl of fresh, fierce, furious rage.
  • The Economist
    Comedy, pathos, sadness: nothing seems beyond her. Her new book has all this-and more. The Woman Upstairs is not a pretty read, but that is precisely what makes it so hard to put down.

  • Lionel Shriver

    Financial Times
    Messud's prose is a delight ... addictive, memorable, intense
  • Mail on Sunday
    This is a faultless, suspenseful novel

  • Lionel Shriver

    New Statesman
    An unnerving portrait of obsession that makes you nervous about your mousiest of neighbours