Elena FerranteThe Lying Life of Adults by Ann Goldstein

Abstract

WORLDLIT.ORG 77 Books in Review Ayad Akhta 84 Homeland Elegies Victor del Árbol 82 Breathing through the Wound Andrés Barba 97 A Luminous Republic Deni Ellis Béchard 89 A Song from Faraway Marie-Helene Bertino 98 Parakeet Fatima Bhutto 86 The Runaways Fióna Bolger 109 A Compound of Words Oisín Breen 96 Flowers, All Sorts in Blossom, Figs, Berries, and Fruits Forgotten Juan Cárdenas 96 Ornamental Sarah Chihaya, 93 Merve Emre, Katherine Hill & Jill Richards The Ferrante Letters Maryse Condé 85 The Belle Créole Mia Couto 90 The Sword and the Spear The Critic as Amateur 105 Ed. Saikat Majumdar & Aarthi Vadde Fred Dings 105 The Four Rings Fatou Diome 100 Les veilleurs de Sangomar Jenny Erpenbeck 94 Not a Novel Fang Fang 80 Wuhan Diary Elena Ferrante 78 The Lying Life of Adults Carlos Fonseca 79 Natural History Jon Fosse 98 The Other Name The Heart of a Stranger 102 Ed. André Naffis-Sahely Yuri Herrera 89 A Silent Fury Sayed Kashua 85 Track Changes Kapka Kassabova 81 To the Lake Samiha Khrais 102 The Tree Stump Yahia Lababidi 92 Revolutions of the Heart Michele Levy 103 Anna,s Dance Yiyun Li 91 Must I Go Chandani Lokugé 111 My Van Gogh Erik Martiny 110 Night of the Long Goodbyes Sara Mesa 107 Four by Four Philip Metres 83 Shrapnel Maps Nancy Morejón 101 Before a Mirror, the City Aimee Nezhukumatathil 108 World of Wonders Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 81 The Perfect Nine Katja Oskamp 99 Marzahn, mon amour Marion Poschmann 104 The Pine Islands Marilynne Robinson 88 Jack C. T. Rwizi 101 Scarlet Odyssey Fabián Severo 92 Night in the North Leïla Slimani 95 Le pays des autres Christiane Vadnais 109 Fauna Matéi Visniec 111 Mr. K Released Voices of a Massacre 106 Ed. Nasser Mohajer Richard Wagamese 86 For Joshua Saeed Yousef 106 Lives Lost Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Epic Mythos Excavating Disaster with Yuri Herrera Jenny Erpenbeck’s Piecework Memoir Christiane Vadnais’s Florid Fauna 81 89 94 109 Elena Ferrante The Lying Life of Adults Trans. Ann Goldstein. New York. Europa Editions. 2020. 318 pages. THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS is Elena Ferrante’s first published novel following the monumental success of her Neapolitan Quartet, which concluded with the publication of The Story of the Lost Child in 2015. In 2017 the documentary Ferrante Fever hit the small screen depicting interviews with Jonathan Franzen, Roberto Saviano, and Hillary Clinton, to name a few. Since then HBO has co-produced director Saverio Costanzo’s television adaptation of the first two books in the Neapolitan Quartet, also to great acclaim, with a third scheduled for production . In 2018 Ferrante began publishing a weekly column for the Guardian, which ended a year later and was published collectively in 2019 under the title L’invenzione occasionale, in English as Incidental Inventions (WLT, Spring 2020). Most recently, Netflix announced that it is developing a series based on The Lying Life of Adults in cooperation with Italy’s Fandango. Critical books and articles on Ferrante’s writing continue to flood the academic and public spheres. Ferrante fever, indeed. Originally published in Italy in 2019 to great acclaim, Ann Goldstein’s English translation was to be published by Europa Editions in June 2020, but with the coronavirus pandemic Europa pushed publication back to September, in large part to give independent bookstores the opportunity to sell the book. The expectations for the novel are high, and I am happy to report that it lives up to and even exceeds those expectations . The Lying Life of Adults resembles Ferrante’s pre–Neapolitan Quartet novels in its compactness rather than the expansiveness of the Neapolitan Quartet. The novel is a wonderful place to start if one hasn’t read Ferrante and a glorious return for the millions of readers who have. The Lying Life of Adults begins with a traumatic scene that sets the narrative in motion. Giovanna, the protagonist and narrator, overhears her father tell her mother that their daughter is ugly. “Two years before leaving home my father said to my mother that I was very ugly. The sentence was...