Woman Upstairs

Fifty years ago, Simone de Beauvoir faulted creative women for their unwillingness to 'dare to irritate, explore, explode.' Two generations later, anger this combustible still feels refreshing (Megan O'Grady Vogue US)Terrifyingly perceptive . . . Nora Eldridge is a kind of Madame Bovary for our time, someone who dreams not of romantic passion but of personal fame, in which the envy of the less fortunate figures importantly. . . . One particular triumph of The Woman Upstairs is that Messud's heroine is so sympathetic, and so eloquent and convincing, that the depth of her illusions is not always apparent. . . . Because Messud has lent Nora her own outstanding gifts as a writer we cannot help believing what she tells us, at least for a while (Alison Lurie The New York Review of Books)
Heartfelt and profound. . . . an absolute page-turner, from its grab-you-by-the-collar opening to its final rumination on the creative uses of anger. . . . it may well be the first truly feminist (in the best, least didactic sense) novel I have read in ages-the novel, candid about sex and the intricacies of female desire, that Virginia Woolf hoped someone would write, given a room and income of her own. An extraordinary novel, a psychological suspense story of the highest sort that will leave you thinking about its implications for days afterward (Bookforum).
Gone Girl meets The Bell Jar (Glamour US)Corrosively funny . . .