The Woman Upstairs made a splash when it was initially published, but obviously it's taken me awhile to get around to it. It's been in my TBR (to be read) pile for a long time, and my book club friends were nice enough to indulge me in reading it for July. Now that I think about it, they indulge me quite a lot. But anyway, I don't think they regret choosing this; I know I certainly don't.

I don't want to spoil this by overly describing it. It built slowly and initially I was worried that it wasn't going to hold my interest, but as the plot progressed the tension just continued to build and build. By the time I finished I felt so exhausted and relieved. The many allusions to marriage plots and the trope of the "madwoman in the attic" will delight feminist literary fans like myself, but it has such a definitive contemporary bent to it, which I found so satisfying. It's rare for a serious literary novel to be so distinctly in the present or even recent past, but Messud pulls it off so gracefully, and even a reference to Avril Lavigne manages not to feel utterly contrived and juvenile (well, maybe it's a bit juvenile, but only as far as it serves the character development).

Messud was famously embroiled in a mild literary scandal because she reacted strongly when an interviewer asked about the protagonist of The Woman Upstairs being "unlikable," and it's disappointing that the news story eclipsed the novel itself, which is really excellent and deserving of its original accolades.