Troubling Love

June 26, 2006
The pseudonymous Italian author of Days of Abandonment
returns with a daughter's attempt to unlock the mystery of her mother's death by drowning following years of domestic abuse. Days before her body washed ashore near her hometown of Naples, Amalia called her oldest daughter, Delia, now 45, with shocking news that she was with a man—not her estranged husband, a two-bit painter—then hung up, laughing. After the funeral (Amalia's husband doesn't show), Delia goes in search of the story behind the expensive new brassiere Amalia was found wearing at her death, incongruous for a poor seamstress who deliberately downplayed her good looks to avoid arousing her husband's savage jealousy. Caserta, a man who acted as Delia's father's agent as well as rival for Amalia's attention, plays a role here—and in Delia's past. In tactile, beautifully restrained prose, Ferrante makes the domestic violence that tore the household apart evident, including the child Delia's attempts to guard her mother from the beatings of her father. By the time of the denouement, Ferrante has forcefully delineated how the complicity in violence against women perpetuates a brutal cycle of repetition and silence.

September 1, 2006
Ferrante's second novel (after "The Days of Abandonment") opens with the drowning death of Amalia, an aging Italian seamstress and the mother of Delia, the mid-forties narrator. Delia returns from Rome to her hometown, Naples, to make the funeral arrangements. Mysterious details about the death emerge, from Amalia's odd phone calls to Delia just days before to the anonymous calls Delia receives and her encounters with an obscenity-yelling, dirty old man. Delia embarks on a quest to find out how and why her mother died, in the process visiting people and places from her past. With the quick-paced mystery guiding the story, Delia explores her relationship with her mother, unraveling memories and secrets repressed since childhood and coming to terms with an upbringing filled with jealousy and violence. As the title indicates, Ferrante's vivid and powerful descriptions can be somewhat troubling at times, leaving the reader with a memorable sense of unease. Recommended for larger public and academic fiction collections." -Sarah Conrad Weisman, Elmira Coll. Lib., NY"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2006
Forty-five-year-old Delia returns to her childhood home of Naples, Italy, to discover the truth behind the drowning death of her mother, Amalia. Suspicious circumstances surround Amalia's last days; the humble seamstress, who never flaunted her beauty for fear of her jealous husband's wrath, was wearing nothing but an expensive designer brassiere at the time of her death. As Delia wanders the vibrant streets of Naples, she ponders three dubious men who figured prominently in her mother's past: Amalia's irascible brother, known for hurling insults at acquaintances and strangers alike; her husband, a mediocre painter with no qualms about slapping Amalia in public; and his lascivious agent, whose marriage never precluded him from propositioning other women. Ironically, it is her mother's death that enables Delia to make better sense of her own life. "I realized . . . that in fact I had Amalia under my skin, like a hot liquid that had been injected into me at some unknown time." Pseudonymous Italian novelist Ferrante (" The Days of Abandonment," 2005) delivers a brutally frank tale about the dangerous intersection of rage and desire.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)