The Woman Upstairs in Around the World in 80 Books

Jul 15, 2013 Sam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1-contemp-literary, reviewed, read-2013

I had no interest in The Woman Upstairs. The premise just didn’t call out to me. But then there was the kerfuffle over Claire Messud’s takedown of the lame Publisher’s Weekly question on how Nora isn’t a likeable character that readers want to be friends with: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/clair.... I loved Messud’s answer. And it got me curious enough about this Nora character to crack open the book for a peek. And right off the bat…holy shit:

“How angry am I? You don’t want to know. Nobody wa I had no interest in The Woman Upstairs. The premise just didn’t call out to me. But then there was the kerfuffle over Claire Messud’s takedown of the lame Publisher’s Weekly question on how Nora isn’t a likeable character that readers want to be friends with: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/clair.... I loved Messud’s answer. And it got me curious enough about this Nora character to crack open the book for a peek. And right off the bat…holy shit:

“How angry am I? You don’t want to know. Nobody wants to know about that.

I’m a good girl, I’m a nice girl, I’m a straight-A, strait-laced, good daughter, good career girl, and I never stole anybody’s boyfriend and I never ran out on a girlfriend, and I put up with my parents’ shit and my brother’s shit, and I’m not a girl anyhow, I’m over forty fucking years old, and I’m good at my job and I’m great with kids and I held my mother’s hand when she died, after four years of holding her hand while she was dying, and I speak to my father everyday on the telephone—every day, mind you, and what kind of weather do you have on your side of the river, because it’s pretty gray and a bit muggy too? 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; and what I really want to shout and want in big letters on that grave, too, is FUCK YOU ALL” (1)

That’s it; that first passage was all it took to pull me in. The strength of the book is this crackling sharp voice, Nora’s voice.

The book is about a teacher in Massachusetts, Nora, who’ll be approaching middle age soon. She lives a quiet, entirely normal life albeit one that’s been a bit lonesome and colorless. She had wanted to be an artist but fears of failure and putting herself out into the world held her back. But then the arrival of a glamorous family from Europe proceeds to upend that boring life.

Nora falls in love with each of the family members—the mother who’s a great artist and pulls Nora into her artwork; the father who’s an intellectual and to whom Nora feels a certain attraction; and the young son toward whom Nora has maternal feelings. They enable her to see the wider world, the possibilities of what she could be and what she could do, as an artist, a lover, a mother.

As Nora is insinuated deeply into the family, becoming infatuated with them, we the readers know that this is not going to end well. And it’s this tension, this dread, that keeps us reading. There’s not much action in the book. We just have Nora painting an honest, complex, brutal, compassionate, cringe-inducing portrait of herself and trying to make sense of this period of... “delirium,” if you will. And man, I loved every page of it. Oh, and I didn’t find Nora unlikeable at all; she was sad, pitiful, but likeable—I was afraid for her, I was cheering for her.
...more

Like · see review

May 21, 2018 Wes F rated it liked it · review of another edition

Borrowed this audiobook from our home library. Not bad; not great. I did like the Boston context and the familiarity of places mentioned in the book.

Like · see review

Jul 10, 2013 Kristen Iworsky rated it it was ok

Shelves: couldn-t-finish-reading

71 pages into the book and I can't bring myself to read.another page. There are plenty of run on run on sentences and fragments but nothing else happening. And I don't care for the main character at all, which really makes it tough to read. ...more

Like · see review