Days of Abandonment

"Quite extraordinary - a deeply discomforting, visceral tale of a woman unravelling." -Paula Hawkins in The Guardian

THE BREAK-OUT NOVEL BY THE INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF MY BRILLIANT FRIEND

Rarely have the foundations upon which our ideas of motherhood and womanhood rest been so candidly questioned. This compelling novel tells the story of one woman's headlong descent into what she calls an "absence of sense" after being abandoned by her husband. Olga's "days of abandonment" become a desperate, dangerous freefall into the darkest places of the soul as she roams the empty streets of a city that she has never learned to love. When she finds herself trapped inside the four walls of her apartment in the middle of a summer heat wave, Olga is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal again.

Review: "Elena Ferrante is a Hypnotist." -The Spectator

"This is about a woman with two children whose husband announces that he's leaving her. She really goes wild, exacting revenge and damage on everybody. Then she retrieves her sanity and loses her love for him, and it s brilliantly savage. Elena Ferrante is a wonderful Italian writer; I'm halfway through My Brilliant Friend, about a long-term friendship between two women in Naples." -The Observer

"Stunning... The raging, torrential voice of the author is something rare." -The New York Times

"If you haven't yet been gripped by #ferrantefever and are wondering where to start, allow me to suggest Ferrante's second novel, Days of Abandonment. A slim volume (perfect for those who are unsure about committing to the 1,704 pages of the Neapolitan novels), it tells the story of Olga, a woman whose husband has left her for a younger woman, as she deals with the fallout of their relationship. Olga narrates her story with an unrestrained visceral ugliness that is both shocking and utterly engrossing, and unlike anything else I've read." -London Review of Books

"This is sharp, vicious, dark and it completely took me aback." -Foyles

"Visceral, dizzying, terrifying - this slim book does more in 192 pages than most in double that." -Verso's Best Books of 2015