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The Lying Life of Adults
Cover of The Lying Life of Adults
The Lying Life of Adults
A Novel
Borrow Borrow
The New York Times–bestseller set in a divided Naples—now a Netflix original series—from the acclaimed author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter.
A BEST BOOK OF 2020
The Washington Post·O, The Oprah Magazine·TIME Magazine·NPR·People Magazine·The New York Times Critics·The Guardian·Electric Literature·Financial Times·Times UK·Irish Times·New York Post·Kirkus Reviews·Toronto Star·The Globe and Mail·Harper's Bazaar·Vogue UK·The Arts Desk
Giovanna's pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape.
"Another spellbinding coming-of-age tale from a master." —People Magazine, Top 10 Books of 2020
"The literary event of the year." —Elle
"Ms. Ferrante once again, with undiminished skill and audacity, creates an emotional force field that has at its heart a young girl on the brink of womanhood." —The Wall Street Journal
The New York Times–bestseller set in a divided Naples—now a Netflix original series—from the acclaimed author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter.
A BEST BOOK OF 2020
The Washington Post·O, The Oprah Magazine·TIME Magazine·NPR·People Magazine·The New York Times Critics·The Guardian·Electric Literature·Financial Times·Times UK·Irish Times·New York Post·Kirkus Reviews·Toronto Star·The Globe and Mail·Harper's Bazaar·Vogue UK·The Arts Desk
Giovanna's pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape.
"Another spellbinding coming-of-age tale from a master." —People Magazine, Top 10 Books of 2020
"The literary event of the year." —Elle
"Ms. Ferrante once again, with undiminished skill and audacity, creates an emotional force field that has at its heart a young girl on the brink of womanhood." —The Wall Street Journal
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About the Author-
  • Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), which was made into a film directed by Roberto Faenza, Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), adapted by Mario Martone, and The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), soon to be a film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. She is also the author of Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019), illustrated by Andrea Ucini, Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey (Europa, 2016) and a children's picture book illustrated by Mara Cerri, The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016). The four volumes known as the "Neapolitan quartet" (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018.

Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    August 31, 2020
    A single comment can change a life, or for Giovanna, the adolescent only child of a middle-class Neapolitan couple in the early 1990s and narrator of Ferrante’s sumptuous latest (after The Story of the Lost Child), it can set it in motion. “She’s getting the face of Vittoria,” Giovanna’s father, Andrea, says about her, referring to Giovanna’s estranged aunt Vittoria, whom Andrea disdains and calls ugly. The comment provokes Giovanna into seeking out Vittoria on the other side of Naples, where she finds a beautiful, fiery woman, consumed by bitterness over a lover’s death and resentful of Andrea’s arrogance at having climbed the social ladder. Andrea can’t save Giovanna from Vittoria’s influence, and their relationship will affect those closest to Giovanna as family secrets unravel and disrupt the harmony of her quiet life. Giovanna’s parents’ devastating marital collapse, meanwhile, causes her to be distracted at school and held back a year, and prompts Giovanna into a steely self-awareness as she has her first sexual experiences along a bumpy ride toward adulthood. Themes of class disparity and women’s coming-of-age are at play much as they were in Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet, but the depictions of inequality serve primarily as a backdrop to Giovanna’s coming-of-age trials that buttress the gripping, plot-heavy tale. While this feels minor in comparison to Ferrante’s previous work, Giovanna is the kind of winning character readers wouldn’t mind seeing more of.

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The Lying Life of Adults
A Novel
Elena Ferrante
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