The Seattle Times: "This superb and scary Italian writer . . . has blown the lid off tempestuous parent-child relations."

If you are looking for uplifting bromides about the intimate mother-daughter bond, do not look to Elena Ferrante's novels.

This superb and scary Italian writer, who chooses to remain anonymous by publishing her popular books under a pseudonym, has blown the lid off tempestuous parent-child relations in each of the three novels that have been translated into English for Europa Editions.

And the latest, "The Lost Daughter," is about as sentimental in its view of parenting as a Mother's Day card inscribed in battery acid.

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