The Lost Daughter

by Elena Ferrante

Overview

Now a major motion picture directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Paul Mescal, and Peter Sarsgaard

Another penetrating Neapolitan story from New York Times–bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lying Life of Adults.

Leda, a middle-aged divorcée, is alone for the first time in years after her two adult daughters leave home to live with their father in Toronto. Enjoying an unexpected sense of liberty, she heads to the Ionian coast for a vacation. But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family in this “arresting” novel by the author of the New York Times–bestselling Neapolitan Novels, which have sold millions of copies and been adapted into an HBO series (Publishers Weekly).
 
“Although much of the drama takes place in [Leda’s] head, Ferrante’s gift for psychological horror renders it immediate and visceral.” —The New Yorker
 
“Ferrante’s prose is stunningly candid, direct and unforgettable. From simple elements, she builds a powerful tale of hope and regret.” —Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609451035
Publisher:	Europa Editions, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/01/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	125
Sales rank:	9,567
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Elena Ferrante was born in Naples. She is the bestselling author of The Days of Abandonment, which the New York Times described as “stunning,” Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter. Her latest novel and the first in a trilogy, My Brilliant Friend, will be available from Europa Editions on September 25, 2012.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Lost Daughter

"Elena Ferrante will blow you away."—Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones

"Ferrante can do a woman's interior dialogue like no one else, with a ferocity that is shockingly honest, unnervingly blunt."—Booklist

"Ferrante has blown the lid off tempestuous parent-child relations."—The Seattle Times

"So refined, almost translucent, that it seems about to float away. In the end this piercing novel is not so easily dislodged from the memory."—The Boston Globe

"Ferrante's prose is stunningly candid, direct and unforgettable. From simple elements, she builds a powerful tale of hope and regret."—Publishers Weekly

"The Lost Daughter is a resounding success...It is delicate yet daring, precise yet evanescent: it hurts like a cut, and cures like balm."—La Repubblica

"The Lost Daughter is a novel about the female condition: the conflicts that can emerge in the sphere of marriage, the extinction of love and passion, the difficult relationships with children, which both obstruct and assist the free expression of one's feelings and the growth towards maturity.”—La Stampa

Praise for Elena Ferrante

“Elena Ferrante’s decision to remain biographically unavailable is her greatest gift to readers, and maybe her boldest creative gesture.”—David Kurnick, Public Books

“Everyone should read anything with Ferrante’s name on it.”—Eugenia Williamson, The Boston Globe

“Ferrante has written about female identity with a heft and sharpness unmatched by anyone since Doris Lessing.”—Elizabeth Lowry, The Wall Street Journal

“Ferrante has become Italy’s best known writer. In our era of social media accessibility, shameless self-promotion, and hot young celebrity culture, this is nothing short of astounding.”—Gina Frangello, Electric Literature

“Ferrante’s writing seems to say something that hasn’t been said before—it isn’t easy to specify what this is—in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep.”—Joanna Biggs, The London Review of Books

“To disagree over the quality of a Ferrante passage is often to run up against what you cannot answer or digest.”—Jedediah Purdy, The Los Angeles Review of Books

From the Publisher