Reading Novels for Greater Pleasure: The Woman Upstairs

Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs (2013) is a riveting, disquieting novel about a lonely woman whose carefully contained life is transformed by an intense friendship with a couple and their young son, whose lives appear flawless. What could go wrong? Readers who want to look more closely at how great fiction works will deepen their appreciation of the novelist’s art through discussion of the novel’s narrators, dialogue, characters, details, and gestures. We’ll examine the choices that shape a powerful story and explore how writers create meaning on the page.