Elena Ferrante’s The Story Of The Lost Child

In scarcely 30 days, I did not so much read Elena Ferrante’s four Neapolitan novels as consume them, enthralled by the ever-expanding story of Elena and Lina, rendered by Ferrante in minute and painfully honest detail. Nothing I have read […]

Elena Ferrante’s Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay

The third book in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series, Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay, follows Lina and Elena through what the novel wryly calls “Middle Time,” that period of adulthood marked, in the case of Elena, by marriage to her […]

Elena Ferrante’s The Story Of A New Name

The Story Of A New Name, the second book in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series, picks up almost immediately where the first one let off, thrusting readers back into the drama of post-World War II Italy and the strained friendship of […]

Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend

No book or series of books has been more frequently recommended to me than Elena Ferrante’s tetralogy of Neapolitan novels, and the best compliment I can give those friends who thrust her on me is that, immediately upon finishing My Brilliant […]