"In tactile, beautifully restrained prose, Ferrante makes the domestic violence that tore the household apart evident."—Publishers Weekly

Following her mother’s untimely and mysterious death, Delia embarks on a voyage of discovery through the streets of her native Naples searching for the truth about her family. Reality is buried somewhere in the fertile soil of memory, and Delia is determined to find it. This stylish fiction from the author of The Days of Abandonment is set in a beguiling but often hostile Naples, whose chaotic, suffocating streets become one of the book’s central motifs. A story about mothers and daughters, and the complicated knot of lies and emotions that binds them.

Elena Ferrante
Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), and The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), now a film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, and Jessie Buckley. She is also the author of Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019), illustrated by Andrea Ucini; Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (Europa, 2016); and a children’s picture book illustrated by Mara Cerri, The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016). The four volumes known as the “Neapolitan novels” (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018. The adaptation of Ferrante’s most recent novel, The Lying Life of Adults (Europa, 2020), debuted on Netflix in 2023.

• Jun 30 2015
  Tweed Magazine: "The dry delivery, the banal details of the date and location of the drowning, all combine to reflect the state of shock and calm one experiences upon the first wave of trauma."
  
• Jul 10 2014
  Mary Whipple Review: "Recreates the mysteries that will always surround our parents."
  
• Jan 21 2013
  The New Yorker: "Her novels are intensely, violently personal, and because of this they seem to dangle bristling key chains of confession before the unsuspecting reader."
  
• Jan 10 2007
  Sanditan.com: "Brief ... but one of the most riveting and intense books about mothers and daughters (!) I’ve ever seen."
  
• Nov 10 2006
  Ready Steady Book: "Ferrante’s writing is raw and earthy [...] Her blunt use of language communicates the urgency and disorder experienced by Delia, drawing readers with her on the journey of discovery."
  
• Oct 26 2006
  The New Yorker: "Ferrante’s polished language belies the rawness of her imagery, which conveys perversity, violence, and bodily functions in ripe detail."