Small presses have had a rough year, but as the literary world continues to conglomerate, we at Literary Hub think they’re more important than ever. Which is why, every (work) day in March—which just so happens to be National Small Press Month—a Lit Hub staff member will be recommending a small press book that they love.
The only rule of this game is that there are no rules, except that the books we recommend must have been published, at some time, and in some place, by a small press. What does it mean to be a small press? Unfortunately there is no exact definition or cutoff. All of the presses mentioned here are considered to be small presses by the recommending editors, and for our purposes, that’s going to be good enough. All of the books mentioned here are considered to be great by the recommending editors, too. If one intrigues you, consider picking it up at your local bookstore, or ordering through Bookshop.org, or even directly from the publisher.
Today, we’re recommending:
The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
published by Europa Editions (2005)
The Days of Abandonment was the first book ever published by Europa Editions, seven years before they published the wildly-popular Neapolitan novels. A slim, intense novel, Ferrante writes about the sudden end of a fifteen-year marriage and one mother’s struggle to make meaning in the chaos and isolation that follows. It’s one of those books that’s shocking in it’s intensity, and wildly fun in it’s dramatics.
When Mario leaves Olga for a much younger woman, Olga contemplates the time she spent with him and what he’s taken from her:
I had taken away my own time and added it to his to make him more powerful. I had put aside my own aspirations to go along with his. At every crisis of despair I had set aside my own crises to comfort him. I had disappeared into his minutes, into his hours, so that he could concentrate. I had taken care of the house, I had taken care of the meals, I had taken care of the children, I had taken care of all the boring details of everyday life, while he stubbornly climbed the ladder up from our unprivileged beginnings. And now, now he had left me, carrying off, abruptly, all that time, all that energy, all that effort I had given him, to enjoy its fruits with someone else, a stranger who had not lifted a finger to bear him and rear him and make him become what he had become.
Olga finds a job writing and translating an unfinished novel, tries to keep the house clean, take care of her children, keep the dog alive, and (awkwardly) attempts to seduce her neighbor. As we enter another season of novels and divorce, I can whole-heartedly recommend reading one of the first and one of the best.
–Emily Firetog, Deputy Editor
