and Ramie Targoff, for pointing me toward Berlin; to Diala Ezzedine and Hashim Sarkis, for sharing their knowledge, and Beirut, with me; to Beatrice Gruendler, for our discussions about Arabic literary history; and to all my fellow Fellows at the Kolleg, for inspiring conversations.
My thanks also, always, to my literary agents, Georges and Anne Borchardt; to my British agent, Felicity Rubinstein; to my British editor and dear friend Ursula Doyle at Virago; and to my U.S. editor Robin Desser at Knopf.
In what have been challenging years, the precious faith and friendship of a few have been invaluable. My particular thanks to Elizabeth Messud, Susanna Kaysen and John Daniels, Melissa Franklin, Sheila Gallagher, Shefali Malhoutra, Mark Gevisser, Ira Sachs, Mary Bing and Doug Ellis, Fiona Sinclair, Julie Livingston and, it goes without saying, to my indefatigable optimist, James Wood, and our two beloved children, Livia and Lucian.
My especial and ineffable gratitude to my father, François Michel Messud (1931–2010), who taught me the importance of laughter, and of rage, and who had no tolerance for the Fun House; and to my mother, Margaret Riches Messud (1933–2012), who lived lightly upon this earth, whose letters taught me how to write and whose eyes taught me how to see.
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Hal Leonard Corporation for permission to reprint “My Happy Ending,” words and music by Avril Lavigne and Butch Walker. Copyright © 2004 by Almo Music Corp., Avril Lavigne Publishing Ltd., EMI Blackwood Music Inc. and Sonotrock Music. All rights for Avril Lavigne Publishing Ltd. controlled and administered by Almo Music Corp. All rights for Sonotrock Music controlled and administered by EMI Blackwood Music Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
A Note About the Author
Claire Messud’s most recent novel, The Emperor’s Children, was a New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Her first novel, When the World Was Steady, and her book of novellas, The Hunters, were both finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award; and her second novel, The Last Life, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and Editor’s Choice at The Village Voice. All four books were named New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Messud has been awarded Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.
Other titles by Claire Messud available in eBook format
The Emperor’s Children 978-0-307-26601-9
When the World Was Steady 978-0-307-80656-7
Like: www.facebook.com/clairemessud
For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com
READER’S GUIDE
The Woman Upstairs
by Claire Messud
The introduction, discussion questions and suggested further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of best-selling author Claire Messud’s brilliant new novel, The Woman Upstairs.
Introduction
The novel opens with a furious self-introduction by the narrator, Nora Eldridge, an elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “How angry am I? You don’t want to know. Nobody wants to know about that” (this page). Just past forty now, she has led the life of a good girl and good daughter, a good teacher who’s good with the kids but not always so good with herself. She has become “the woman upstairs”: quiet, polite, smiling, causing no trouble. But now she is furious. She wants to set the world on fire. The journey that brought her to this point unfolds as the novel moves forward.
The trouble begins with what at first appears to be a godsend: the arrival in Cambridge of the Shahid family from Paris. Seven-year-old Reza, an enchanting boy, joins her class, and soon Nora meets his charming, sophisticated parents: Skandar, a visiting scholar at Harvard, and Sirena, an installation artist on the cusp of international fame. Nora falls in love with all of them, both separately and together, and in the process oversteps the boundaries she has so carefully created for herself. When Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies, Nora is drawn deep into the family’s complex and alluring world.
Nora’s growing friendship with Sirena also reawakens her own artistic ambitions, which were largely abandoned when she became a teacher. Sirena is working on a new sculptural and video-based installation called Wonderland, based in part on the dream-world into which Lewis Carroll’s Alice descends, to premier at a major show in Paris. Fueled by Sirena’s vision and creativity, Nora dives into her own project: small-scale dioramas of the rooms of four different female artists, each radical in her own way. Working with Sirena, working on her art, Nora feels fully alive, energized and inspired.