The Story of the Lost Child, by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Europa). The final installment of Ferrante’s engrossing and wildly popular Neapolitan tetralogy concludes the story of the childhood companions and competitors Elena and Lila. Elena, brought back to Naples by the disintegration of her marriage and the start of a new romance, contends with family disapproval, the challenges of bringing up daughters as she advances a literary career, and the pull of the charismatic Lila. The novel examines friendship, motherhood, politics, class conflict, and the project of writing, as Elena reflects, “I felt strong, no longer a victim of my origins but capable of dominating them, of giving them a shape, of taking revenge on them for myself, for Lila, whomever.”
