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A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE 21st CENTURY
“Remarkable, lucid, austerely honest.”—The New Yorker
Elena Ferrante’s shattering English-language debut remains an unforgettable reading experience for her die-hard readers and a thorny pleasure still to be discovered for the millions of fans who only know her from My Brilliant Friend. “A masterpiece,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer; “Stunning,” says The New Yorker; “Nothing prepares you for the ferocity of it,” wrote Amy Rowland in The New York Times. Even two decades after its first publication, The Days of Abandonment remains a groundbreaking, propulsive, and cathartic account of a woman’s wrath.
Olga’s husband of fifteen years has announced that he is leaving her. In a “raging, torrential voice” (New York Times) that is nonetheless “intelligent and darkly comic” (Publishers Weekly), Olga recounts her journey from denial to devastating emptiness. When she finds herself trapped within the four walls of her apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own self, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.
“If that's not a great literary novel, I don't know what is.”—Kate Christensen, ELLE
“The writer is immensely self-aware and her frankness is stunning.”—The New York Times
“Remarkable, lucid, austerely honest.”—The New Yorker
“If that's not a great literary novel, I don't know what is.”—Kate Christensen, ELLE
“Ferrante describes the violent rupture of a marriage with all the inner tranquility that you might associate with Medea. When her book's heroine has the temerity to invoke Anna Karenina approaching the railroad tracks, the analogy is actually well earned.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“Ferrante's novels are tactile and sensual, visceral and dizzying.”—The Guardian
“Nothing you read about Elena Ferrante's work prepares you for the ferocity of it.”—Amy Rowland, The New York Times
“Ferrante’s voice feels necessary.”—Mona Simpson, author of Casebook and Anywhere But Here
“Elena Ferrante: the best angry woman writer ever!”—John Waters, director
“Ferrante] describes the female experience so intimately and so vividly that the reader feels like she could (and should) know the writer personally."—Kat Stoeffel, New York Magazine
“Ferrante puts most other writing at the moment in the shade. She’s marvelous.”—Richard Flanagan, Booker Prize-winning author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North