The Woman Upstairs

The Woman Upstairs

Claire Messud

#2391 of 8,085 books · #1001 in Fiction

Shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (2013). Also longlisted for 1 other award.

The Woman Upstairs won the New York Times bestseller list and was named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, a Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Noteworthy Book, a Huffington Post Best Book, a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year, and a Kirkus Best Fiction Book. Told with urgency, intimacy, and piercing emotion, this is the riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed, and abandoned by a desire for a world beyond her own. Nora Eldridge is a reliable, but unremarkable, friend and neighbor, always on the fringe of other people's achievements. But the arrival of the Shahid family—dashing Skandar, a Lebanese scholar, glamorous Sirena, an Italian artist, and their son, Reza—draws her into a complex and exciting new world. Nora's happiness pushes her beyond her boundaries, until Sirena's careless ambition leads to a shattering betrayal.