The Days of Abandonment

Name: The Days of Abandonment
Author: Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante · 2002

A woman's husband leaves her and she disintegrates. That sentence is the whole novel and it is not enough. Ferrante published it in 2002 (in Italian; English translation 2005) and wrote abandonment with a ferocity that makes most domestic fiction feel polite. The locked-apartment sequence, where the protagonist is trapped with her sick children and a dying dog, is among the most harrowing chapters in contemporary fiction.

The case against

on the ending
“the ending was disappointing and not entirely credible”
a book blog
on Olga’s bitterness
“You wish she had a little more dignity and a little less bitterness”
a book blog
on the reading pace
“I found I needed to read it in small episodes”
a book blog
on the graphic content
“It’s graphic in many ways, uncomfortably so”
five stars · a Substack review