The debut novel from the author of My Brilliant Friend in a brand-new edition

Following her mother’s untimely death, Delia sets off on a breath-taking odyssey through the chaotic, suffocating streets of her native Naples in search of the truth about her family.

Reality is buried in the fertile soil of memory, and Delia digs deep to reconcile the past with the mysterious events leading up to her mother’s death. Spurred by a series of anonymous phone calls, Delia reconstructs her mother’s final days and with every new discovery must face the possibility that her mother was not at all the person Delia believed her to be. To learn the truth and to untangle the knot of lies, passions and memories that bind mother and daughter, Delia must return to the Naples of her childhood.

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“Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy - and the world.” 

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“Ferrante’s polished language belies the rawness of her imagery, which conveys perversity, violence, and bodily functions in ripe detail.”