This compelling novel that shocked audiences in Europe with its unsentimental and unyielding depiction of motherhood, marriage and solitude, 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.

Some readers have found Ferrante's depiction of an abandoned woman scandalous and reprehensible, others relentlessly honest. But readers and critics alike agree: The Days of Abandonment demands serious attention.