La vecina de arriba

Nora Eldridge is a thirty-seven-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Long ago, she harbored the illusion of being an artist, but today she is satisfied with dedicating herself to her students and being the "woman from above", a reliable friend and an orderly neighbor always apart from the achievements of others. One day, Reza Shahid, a charming boy who looks like something out of a fairy tale, arrives in her class. He and his parents, Skandar, a Lebanese scholar and professor at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris; and Sirena, a glamorous Italian artist, have come to Boston thanks to a scholarship from Skandar to study at Harvard. When Reza is harassed by his classmates in the schoolyard calling him a 'terrorist', Nora is forced into the complex world of the Shahid family, whom she soon idealizes. Nora will become obsessed with each of them, until Sirena's careless ambition leads to a devastating betrayal. Told with intimacy and piercing emotion, this story of obsession and artistic achievement explores the emotion and devastating cost of giving in to one's passions.