The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

A holiday on the beach provokes dark memories in this slim, unsettling novel.

Emotionally gripping.

After the flight of her daughters from the family nest and a stormy separation from her husband, 47-year-old Leda is surprised to find herself enjoying the peace and quiet. She has a tidy house. She feels unfettered. Her figure and mental equilibrium return. What better way to celebrate than a nice seaside holiday?

But that first night she feels something cold and alien in the bed. A disgusting, dark brown, winged cicada.

Leda spends her days with a pile of university papers on the beach, but her attention is drawn towards Nina, a young beautiful young mother. As Leda draws Nina into her orbit, her observations of the young woman merge with her own memories as a mother and her childhood as a daughter.

Leda’s multiple identities are constantly at war: mother, daughter, wife, academic, individual. ‘I’m an unnatural mother,’ she says. But is she? She is nurturing, and destructive. Self-sacrificing, and vindictive. Proud, and resentful. She knows the hot flashes of anger ignited by the overwhelming irritation of being constantly interrupted. But, so do I.

‘I, too, was hiding many dark things, in silence.’ (p.100)

The Lost Daughter is a novel with two engines: half is driven by the dread of what we guess from the title, and half by the dread of the consequences. It’s emotionally gripping, raw, and thought-provoking. Leda’s narration is frank and confiding and judgemental - and impossible to put down. Here lie some truths of motherhood.

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