Troubling Love

Set in Naples, Italy, this debut novel by New York Times bestselling author Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend, The Days of Abandonment) tells a story about mothers and daughters and the complicated knot of lies, emotions, and shared history than binds them.

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

As the New York Times wrote about this novel, "the raging, torrential voice of the author is something rare." Troubling Love is indeed a rare look into the abiding preoccupations and obsessions that bring millions of readers all over the world to her fiction.


"Troubling Love is a psychological mystery...Ferrante is fascinated by the moments when a personality—like a wire stretched too far from its power source—shorts and corrodes." —David Lipsky, The New York Times

"A tour de force, Troubling Love is a harrowing tour of a feminine psyche under siege. Together with The Days of Abandonment, it confirms Ferrante's reputation as one of Italy's best contemporary novelists." —Seattle Times

"With 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

"Ferrante's polished language belies the rawness of her imagery." —The New Yorker

"Ferrante delivers a brutally frank tale about the dangerous intersection of rage and desire." —Booklist