The Woman Upstairs Summary
Claire Messud

The Woman Upstairs Overview

When third-grade teacher Nora Eldridge meets Sirena and Skandar Shahid, the parents of one of her students, she falls in love with each of them independently. Sirena and Nora share studio space together, and Nora feels both encouraged and belittled by Sirena’s work, as they collaborate on an installation piece that makes Sirena famous, but does nothing for Nora’s career. Sirena and Skandar return to Paris after their one year in Cambridge, and when she visits them there, she finds that Sirena’s project humiliated Nora in a way that that spurs Nora to become the great artist she thought Sirena was, if only out of anger and revenge.