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Read this collection of letters and interviews if you’ve read all of Ferrante’s fiction and loved all her words, words, words—which I do. (Otherwise, forget it.) My only regret is that I didn’t read it sooner after finishing her novels, but the details I’ve forgotten don’t really matter: it’s the themes that are paramount.

It’s also not a book to read straight through, as some of the questions (and answers) of the written interviews are repetitive (mostly those dealing with her choice to not use her real name), as if the interviewers hadn’t read any of the earlier interviews, or as if they thought they’d get a different answer. The interviews become more interesting as the book progresses, however, as Ferrante becomes more comfortable with the process, and even more voluble. (For this reason, don’t read the much shorter, earlier edition.) At one point Ferrante says the process of answering the questions has helped to elucidate her own ideas for herself.

My favorite part was learning about the word frantumaglia,"a jumble of fragments�. Ferrante’s mother used the word (from their dialect) often, to describe “contradictory sensations that were tearing her apart�, though Ferrante admits she doesn’t know if she’s correctly interpreting her mother’s meaning. Ferrante expands the definition of the word even further for herself as the interviews go on. Now I have a word for the “miscellaneous crowd of things� I’ve always experienced in my own head, though I know I’m not pronouncing it correctly.