Troubling Love

A woman goes home to Naples after her mother’s mysterious death in a “tour de force” by the New York Times–bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend (Seattle Times).   Following her mother’s untimely and unexplained drowning, which was preceded by a series of strange phone calls, forty-five-year-old Delia leaves Rome and embarks on a voyage of discovery through the beguiling yet often hostile streets of her native Naples. She is searching for the truth about her family and the men in her mother’s life, past and present, including an abusive husband. What she discovers will be more unsettling than she imagines, but will also reveal truths about herself, in this psychological mystery marked by “tactile, beautifully restrained prose” (Publishers Weekly) about mothers and daughters and the complicated knot of lies and emotions that binds them.   “Ferrante’s polished language belies the rawness of her imagery.” —The New Yorker   “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 . . . Troubling Love is vivid and powerful.” —Library Journal

"A deeply observed, excruciatingly blunt novel."The New Yorker

"The raging, tormented voice of the author is something rare."The New York Times

Following her mother's untimely and mysterious death, Delia embarks on a voyage of discovery through the streets of her native Naples searching for the truth about her family. A series of mysterious telephone calls leads her to compelling and disturbing revelations about her mother's final days.

This stylish fiction from the author ofThe Days of Abandonment is set in a beguiling but often hostile Naples, whose chaotic, suffocating streets become one of the book's central motifs. A story about mothers and daughters and the complicated knot of lies and emotions that binds them.