“YOU CAN TURN ugly because of worries,” 12-year-old Giovanna believes, “and if the worries go away you can be pretty again.” But anxiety can’t simply be washed off, as Giovanna learns over the course of Elena Ferrante’s incendiary new novel, The Lying Life of Adults (Europa).
Giovanna’s chief concern, at the start of the book, is her place in the taxonomy of beauty: How should she classify her looks? When she overhears her father lament that she’s beginning to resemble his sister Vittoria, a woman in whom unattractiveness “and spite were combined to perfection,” the comparison precipitates seismic changes in Giovanna’s sense of self, which in turn begin the unraveling of her once sound family.
The story—set in Naples, Italy, like the series that began with My Brilliant Friend—follows Giovanna through adolescence…
You're reading a preview of
O, The Oprah (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2020