The strange but accessible novel by Natalia Ginzburg: Happiness, As Such

A little too early to judge, but Natalia Ginzburg's 1973 novel Happiness, As Such (the original title in Italian translates as Dear Michele - did NG or her estate OK this change of title?), which is strange by most standards - much of it an epistolary novel but some chapters standard narrative and others almost completely in dialog - but is also accessible (the language is always straightforward and direct, no long digressions or rambling monologues is in so much avant-garde fiction) and the plot is easy enough to follow. Here's the plot such as it is: The setting is contemporary (i.e, ca 1970) Rome, with an anxious mother writing to her son (Michele) who is an artist and activist, living on a shoe-string, and about to relocate to London; his father/her ex is gravely ill, in fact he dies early on in the narrative, and there's much grief about M's failure/refusal to attend his funeral. Meanwhile, M was involving in a relationship with a young woman, Mara, living in extreme poverty, who is mother to a month-old baby. Whose child? That is perhaps an unresolvable question, but Michele takes some minimal responsibility. Mara meanwhile is in desperate need of housing, and some of the plot involves her plight; a few different people put her up, or more accurately put up w/ her, as she's a difficult personality. So all these strands of the plot are out there waving around, and it appears - about 1/3 through this short novel, that it's really a portrait of a time and place and social set on the radical left (Michele is involved in the hiding and disposal of a machine gun) as well as a story of motherhood from the viewpoint of a difficult, demanding mother: The first chapter, most of which is a letter to her son, is a tour de force of wit and eccentricity.