By Claire Messud – Knopf, 2013
Nora is a schoolteacher in her early 40s; she has never married, and she feels invisible, discarded. And boy, is she angry. Is that because her life’s dream of becoming an artist took a backseat to her role as a devoted daughter? Called upon to advocate for a student, she falls in love with the boy’s family collectively and individually, each member awakening a part of Nora that had been dormant. Now she can see possibility where there was none. Nora imagines the boy as her own, the husband as her lover. Enamored with the boy’s mother, Nora shares a studio with her and creates art again. Her passion is unbridled until an unexpected event shatters Nora. A rich, psychological thriller about second chances gone awry.
