What is the author's style in the novel, The Woman Upstairs?

The Woman Upstairs is narrated in a highly literary language that is full of allusion and symbolism and additional meanings beyond the literal. She references 20th-century poetry and art and makes free reference to the events of European and American history. The Black Monk is one figure who comes up a number of times, from a story of Chekhov’s, but Alice in Wonderland is also a constant echo for the events taking place in the novel. Out of these numerous references, Claire Messud creates a well-educated narrator who is nevertheless naïve in personal experience. Sirena, of course, invokes the Sirens who lure Odysseus astray in the Odyssey. This kind of additional meaning is common throughout The Woman Upstairs.