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Claire Messud

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Claire Messud


Born
in Greenwich, Connecticut, The United States
October 08, 1966

Website

Genre


Claire Messud is an American novelist and literature and creative writing professor. She is best known as the author of the novel The Emperor's Children (2006).
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Average rating: 3.23 · 75,184 ratings · 9,934 reviews · 32 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Woman Upstairs

3.31 avg rating — 33,228 ratings — published 2013 — 43 editions
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The Emperor's Children

2.98 avg rating — 21,167 ratings — published 2006 — 21 editions
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The Burning Girl

3.25 avg rating — 12,523 ratings — published 2017 — 32 editions
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This Strange Eventful History

3.63 avg rating — 2,262 ratings11 editions
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The Last Life

3.54 avg rating — 1,919 ratings — published 1999 — 27 editions
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When the World Was Steady

3.14 avg rating — 1,018 ratings — published 1994 — 24 editions
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A Dream Life (Short Books b...

3.27 avg rating — 798 ratings — published 2021 — 4 editions
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The Hunters

3.47 avg rating — 636 ratings — published 2001 — 16 editions
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Kant's Little Prussian Head...

3.77 avg rating — 183 ratings — published 2020 — 11 editions
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The Professor's History

3.77 avg rating — 30 ratings
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More books by Claire Messud…

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Quotes by Claire Messud  (?)
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“Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn't that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a frozen kernel of sorrow that the fire is trying -- valiantly, fruitlessly -- to eradicate.”
Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

“It's the strangest thing about being human: to know so much, to communicate so much, and yet always to fall so drastically short of clarity, to be, in the end, so isolate and inadequate. Even when people try to say things, they say them poorly or obliquely, or they outright lie, sometimes because they're lying to you, but as often because they're lying to themselves.”
Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

“I'm a good girl. I'm a nice girl. I'm a straight-A, strait-laced, good daughter, good career girl, and I never stole anybody's boyfriend and I never ran out on a girlfriend, and I put up with my parents' shit and brother's shit and I'm not a girl anyhow, I'm over forty fucking years old, and I'm good at my job and I'm great with kids and I held my mother's hand when she died,after four years of holding her hand while she was dying, and I speak to my father ever day on the telephone -- every day, mind you, and what kind of weather do you have on your side of the river, because here it's pretty gray and a big muggy too? It was supposed to say "Great Artist" on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say "Such a good teacher/daughter/friend" instead; and what I really want to shout, and want in big letters on that grave, too, is FUCK YOU ALL.”
Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

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