The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
I just can’t stop reading Elena Ferrante. I finished this earlier 2002 book weeks ago and can’t stop thinking about it. The writing was so visceral the events felt like they had happened to me. It’s one of the most harrowing stories of the mental breakdown, paranoia and grief a woman goes through when she is suddenly abandoned by her husband and left with two small children and a sick dog in an apartment in Italy during a heat wave.
“One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me. He did it while we were clearing the table; the children were quarreling as usual in the next room, the dog was dreaming, growling beside the radiator.”