The Story of the Lost Child
Elena Ferrante · 2015
The final volume of the Neapolitan Quartet. Ferrante's anonymous masterpiece about female friendship, class, and Naples across decades became the most influential literary phenomenon of the 2010s. The quartet is a single sustained achievement that changed what readers expected from fiction.
The case against
Fourth volume of a quartet, useless on its own; the price of admission is three prior books. Naples politics and Solara intrigue sprawl, the central tragedy tips toward soap opera, and Lenù's self-regard grates harder with age. The closing gesture with the dolls is either perfect or a shrug, depending on your patience.
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