The Woman Upstairs

By: Claire Messud

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor's Children, a brilliant new novel: the riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed, and betrayed by passion and desire for a world beyond her own.

Nora Eldridge, a 37-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who long ago abandoned her ambition to be a successful artist, has become the "woman upstairs", a reliable friend and tidy neighbor always on the fringe of others' achievements. Then into her classroom walks Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale. He and his parents - dashing Skandar, a Lebanese scholar and professor at the École Normale Supérleure; and Sirena, an effortlessly glamorous Italian artist - have come to Boston for Skandar to take up a fellowship at Harvard. When Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies who call him a "terrorist" Nora is drawn into the complex world of the Shahid family: She finds herself falling in love with them, separately and together. Nora's happiness explodes her boundaries, until Sirena's careless ambition leads to a shattering betrayal. Told with urgency, intimacy, and piercing emotion, this story of obsession and artistic fulfillment explores the thrill - and the devastating cost - of giving in to one's passions.

©2013 Claire Messud (P)2013 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Fantastic - one of those seemingly small stories that so burst with rage and desire that they barely squeeze between hard covers. The prose is impeccable.... Messud writes about happiness, and about infatuation - about love - more convincingly than any author I’ve encountered in years. She fills [her] protagonist with an inner life so rich and furious that you will never again nod hello in the hall to ‘the woman upstairs’ without thinking twice.... Is Nora’s entrancement erotic, or bigger and stranger than sex? I’m not telling. Read the book." (Lionel Shriver, National Public Radio, "All Things Considered")

"Bracing...not so much the story of the road not taken as that of the longed-for road that never appeared.... Nora’s anger electrifies the narrative, and Messud masterfully controls the tension and pace. In this fierce, feminist novel, the reader serves as Nora’s confessor, and it’s a pleasure to listen to someone so eloquent, whose insights about how women are valued in society and art are sharp." (Jenny Shank, Dallas News)

"An elegant winner of a novel...quietly, tensely unfolding.... Remarkably, Messud lets us experience Nora’s betrayal as if it were our own, and what finally happens really is a punch in the stomach. Highly recommended." (Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal)

Pointless

Odd, pointless story. I'm not sure why this was written, published, or recorded. This made me want to stab myself in the eye with a pencil.

Huge Waste of my Time

What disappointed you about The Woman Upstairs?

Eleven hours of absolute drivel. Yes...I liked the narrater and Im confident that the author is probably a good writer but this book did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR ME.
The characters did nothing for me...they were boring, and, it took eleven hours to get to the ridiculous twist at the end...which still had no real ending.
I almost feel angry that it wasted so much of my time that could have been spent on a book with a decent story.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Inferno, Dan Brown

Would you listen to another book narrated by Cassandra Campbell?

possibly

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

utter disappointment.

Disappointing

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I don't know.

Would you ever listen to anything by Claire Messud again?

Probably not.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Cassandra Campbell?

Yes.

What character would you cut from The Woman Upstairs?

No one.

Any additional comments?

I probably heard a review of this on NPR which is from where I usually choose books; expect good NPR reviews to be good books. This book could have been condensed to a short story. Ending is surprising, but the rest of the book was boring; I kept expecting something more from the characters and story than I got. Both just sort of droned on.

Boring!

What’s the point, not very interesting and it goes on and on. Not worth the sale price or the time.

The woman should have been relegated to the cellar

If you're interested in a book with unlikeable, unreliable characters, hints of possible drama, obsession, and betrayal, melancholy and whining, endless run-on narrative from the main character, a plot that bogs down completely, and a rushed ending, then have I got the book for you! I decided to read The Woman Upstairs after hearing an interview with Claire Messud on NPR; the book was touted as a "saga of anger and thwarted ambition". While there was plenty of anger, I couldn't find the ambition part. Unmarried, childless, elementary school teacher Nora Eldridge thinks, “It was supposed to say ‘Great Artist’ on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say ‘such a good teacher/daughter/friend’ instead.” She becomes infatuated with the whole Shahid family, and because of this association she resumes some of her own artistic endeavors, only to let them get crowded out due to her obsession.

There is a possibility that I didn't 'get' this book because I'm not terribly sophisticated and don't understand "Great Artists', but it seems to me that adjusting our aspirations is something every single one of us has to deal with as we grow older. I hope I'm dealing with it in a more mature, productive, and reasonable way than the deluded and angry Nora.

Study is simpering self absorbtion

Don't waste your credit. Cassandra Campbell is an excellent reader. She gives wonderful voice to the characters. The story itself is more than disappointing. Nora is unlikeable and vacuous. I kept waiting for something to give some point and meaning to the story but like the rest of the book, the ending was pointless and disappointing.

Pretentious story with extremely annoying narrator

Would you try another book from Claire Messud and/or Cassandra Campbell?

I would maybe try another book from this narrator in ten years or so. This felt like a writing program thesis project rather than a work from the soul. It reminded me a bit of Ian McEwan and not in a good way. I would emphatically avoid another book from this narrator because her delivery is painfully slow and deliberate and annoying. I found myself trying to think what would make a person linger so long on the last letter of every word instead of listening to the story.

Drivel

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Chapter after chapter I kept waiting for something to happen. I waited in vain. Cannot for the life of me recall why I thought this would be a good listen. The words are pleasantly strung together but the main character is weak and insipid and if she were my friend I would steer her towards therapy.

What was most disappointing about Claire Messud’s story?

The story. Or lack of one. It was a person's rambling about her rather pathetic life.

What about Cassandra Campbell’s performance did you like?

She is consistently good at keeping the listener's attention even while reading a weak book.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Not that would cause me to recommend or discuss it with anyone.

Let me tell you about an Angry woman........

I read reviews of this book exclaiming what a powerful exploration of female anger it was. At the end of this book I think I was only marginally less angry than Nora the lead character. If you want to waste 11 hours and 1 minute of your life listening to endless descriptive passages about self obsessed, nacissistic, whining, whinging characters then this is the book for you. If you come across enough unlikeable people in your real life to keep you going and dont need to fill your spare time with even more then i suggest you dont purchase this title. This would have made a good short story but 11 hours!!....i might ask audible to refund my credit, too bad they cant refund my time.