A review by wendoxford
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

4.0

This is an angry first person lament on "the woman upstairs" - the unfulfilled spinster. Nora lives in Boston and becomes entwined with an exotic people - the female (Italian) artist, her Lebanese husband and their son who is in her care at primary school. She falls in love with each of them differently - setting up a studio to do her work alongside the true artist. She is constantly putting herself down and bigging them up and ends up facing a betrayal she struggles to comprehend. An odd book but cringingly readable.