The Woman Upstairs, Messud’s novel of a middle aged women looking back on her life in anger is reminiscent of Anita Brookner’s work, but the bitterness and self-deception of her narrator is a bit more below the surface.  Nora Eldridge used to have a future, but now she is the “woman upstairs” who teaches elementary school and sacrifices herself for everyone else.  The bulk of the story is about Nora’s friendship with a couple she encounters, the parents of Reza, a boy in her class.  His mother, Sirena, is Italian and an artist, while his father, Skandar, is Palestinian Lebanese.  Nora becomes entranced by this couple, and is thrilled to be included in their exotic lives.  Sirena is an artist with a successful career, while Skandar is an up and coming academic who is an expert on the Middle East.  She willingly involves herself in their lives and spends a lot of time looking after Reza, and helps Sirena with her art.  She even gets involved in some of the marital difficulties that Skandar and Sirena experience.  But Nora takes a long time to realize that they don’t really think of her as a member of their family, but once it dawns on her what the truth is, she becomes incensed.  So the story is really one of her coming to her anger and settling in it in the retelling of her story.  She is angry with Skandar and Sirena, but she is also angry with herself.  This makes the story different from that other great book of self-deception, Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, whose narrator never seems to fully comprehend the way his life has been a waste.  Messud explores many themes of what it means to be a single woman in her forties without children, and it’s psychologically rich.  Although it is hardly a fast-paced story, it is an enticing read that makes the reader curious to know how it ends.  The plot runs the risk of making Nora a pathetic figure and Skandar and Sirena villains, and while it doesn’t quite escape that flaw, it does sustain moral complexity that leaves the reader working out how to assess Nora’s life.   

© 2014 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York