Nora Eldridge had hopes and dreams, but
she put them aside to pursue a practical career and care for an ailing
mother. Now her artistic side has been
reawakened with the arrival of the Shahid family in her life. Reza, a wonderful student in Nora’s third
grade class is exactly what she envisions the son she is never to have would
have been. Through an incident at school
she meets Reza’s mother Sirena. Sirena
is an exotic woman who pursued a career in art and is on the verge of becoming
famous. At Sirena’s urging the two women
rent a studio together to work on their art.
Skandar is the intellectual father/husband Nora enjoys conversing with
on long walks home from dinners with the Shahid’s. Nora falls in love with all three and is
horribly betrayed by at least one of them.
Nora is a woman alone who seems to
be content and then after meeting the Shahids detests being alone. She constantly describes herself as the woman
upstairs, alone and forgotten, but not nearly as cool as the madwoman in the
attic. She is approaching a mid-life
crisis and what happens throws her off the edge. It’s a late in life coming of age story and
the study of people who are hard to like, but easy to understand.
