College & Adult

The Woman Upstairs

By Claire Messud
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Lisa A.
Dec 4, 2019

“Nobody would know me from my own description of myself; which is why, when called upon (rarely, I grant) to provide an account, I tailor it, I adapt, I try to provide an outline that can, in some way, correlate to the outline that people understand me to have -- that, I suppose, I actually have, at this point. But who I am in my head, very few people really get to see that. Almost none. It's the most precious gift I can give, to bring her out of hiding.”

― Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

The Woman Upstairs is a smart book. The writing is smart; the vocabulary is smart; the main character