The latest news and review on American novelist Claire Messud
July 2024
This Booker longlist might just be the most enjoyable of recent years
Lisa Allardice
Three British novelists make Booker 2024 longlist among ‘cohort of global voices’
May 2024
‘Is it a betrayal?’ Claire Messud on writing her family into fiction
For her new novel, the author drew from her parents’ letters and grandfather’s memoir. She describes the fears and joys that come with writing about family
January 2024
2024 culture preview
Fiction to look out for in 2024
The first great lockdown novel, new tales from David Nicholls, Sarah Perry and Percival Everett, and Rachel Kushner’s contender for the Booker… next year promises to be special
November 2020
Books interview
Claire Messud: 'To be a writer is to stand at the side'
The novelist and Harvard academic on her mother’s dementia, getting in touch with her teenage self, and how she reacts to bad reviews
June 2018
Books that made me
Claire Messud: ‘Reading Dostoevsky made fireworks go off in my head’
The novelist on how Notes from Underground lit her path to the dark side, the brilliance of Penelope Fitzgerald and comforts of Anna Karenina
September 2017
Book of the day
The Burning Girl by Claire Messud review – innocence and loss
Claire Messud: ‘Maybe in 50 years there won’t be novels’
September 2014
The American novels that should have won the Booker prize
Britain’s top literary award includes American titles for the first time this year. We asked top writers and critics which novels should have won had US authors been eligible throughout the prize’s history
March 2014
Books blog
Baileys Women's prize for fiction – longlist predictions
As the judges prepare to reveal their longlist, there's time for a final look at the tipped authors – and a chance to recommend our own, writes Alison Flood
January 2014
Nicholas Lezard's choice
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud – review
Nicholas Lezard's paperback of the week: Anger is the subject of this very grown-up novel
December 2013
Readers' books of the year 2013: part 1
Observer books of the year 2013
Fiction books of the year – review
October 2013
On the shelf: Bridget Jones and other literary singletons
Bridget Jones is back – as a widow. Why in fiction is it still a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman must be in want of a husband, asks Rachel Cooke
September 2013
The Deaths by Mark Lawson – review
Mark Lawson's bleak satire on England's new aristocracy pulls no punches, says Alex Preston
August 2013
A life in ...
Claire Messud: 'I still believe at the end somebody will say: and you get an A-minus for your life'
The books interview: The author of The Woman Upstairs on middle age, twee adages and why being likable will cost you dear
July 2013
Best holiday reads 2013
From classic novels to recent releases, writers and critics tell the Observer which books they'll be cramming into their suitcases this summer
May 2013
Critical eye
Book reviews roundup: A Delicate Truth, All That Is, The Woman Upstairs
What the critics thought of John le Carré's A Delicate Truth, James Salter's All That Is and Claire Messud's The Woman Upstairs
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud – review
Claire Messud's latest narrator is angry, female and refreshingly believable, writes Elizabeth Day
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud – review
Joanna Briscoe is gripped and dazzled by a tale of a lonely woman's fixation on the lives of her apparently glamorous neighbours
