The Woman Upstairs, the first chapter, in first person, first line of the new novel: “How angry am I?” I think you can take the question straight. The character doesn’t know. That’s the pathos. Not knowing your feelings. Trying to take possession of them.

The woman upstairs speaks to us, or rather to herself and we’re listening in. She over 40. At forty plus the excuses have to be over.

FUCK YOU ALL. Don’t mind me, I’m just quoting. I didn’t  know Claire Messud used the F word. All caps as well.

We’re at the start of what promises to be a grand novel about a middle-aged woman who has been defrauded out of herself, out of all she could be.

Nora Marie Eldridge is in a panic. All your life you hold it in. You do what’s expected of you. Then suddenly, something tips you over, maybe it’s just like a slant of light in a fun house. And you realize you’ve created a distorted image of yourself, or it’s been created for you. There’s a wonderful fun house metaphor developed in the first chapter of The Woman Upstairs.

How could we have ended up, after decades of the women’s movement, with girls in school in the 21st century who care more about their hair than what’s in their minds? That’s Nora’s rant. But Messud has her say something more interesting about, in my words, how hard it is to sift the true significance out of your life like you are panning for gold when there is so much fool’s gold lying around.

I especially love the way Messud said it; which I am NOT going to tell you; because you will have to read it for yourself in the new novel. But it’s something (again my words) about life being full of entrapments that look like fulfilling options but turn out to be more like fly paper.

Nora Marie Eldridge is The Woman Upstairs. She’s the woman you don’t know much about who always seems to be standing by to help out or just say good morning to you as you pass her by. The best friend, the dutiful daughter, the kindly instructor who is teaching your kids to have the kind of fulfilling life that she hasn’t led.

I’m so proud of Claire Messud’s start to what promises to be a thrilling new novel. Thrilling because a writer who I consider fastidiously careful seems to have bravely unmoored herself and is heading out into a perfect storm of literature.

The writer Jane Gardam has said that a great character is a writer’s most fortunate discovery. It’s like the character of Nora has tried to batter down Claire Messud’s door in the middle of the night, demanding to be heard. The Woman Upstairs will be published by Knopf on April 30th of next year.