The Lying Life of Adults

From the author of My Brilliant Friend , a powerful new novel set in a divided Naples. Soon to be adapted into a NETFLIX original series.

A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick 2021 A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of My Brilliant Friend, a powerful new novel set in a divided Naples THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Soon to be adapted into a NETFLIX original series "Incendiary." - Mail on Sunday "The most intense writing about the experiences and interior life of a girl on the cusp of adulthood that I have ever read."-Financial Times "An astonishing, deeply moving tale."-The Guardian "Modern, urgent, truthful."-The Telegraph Giovanna's pretty face has changed: it's turning into the face of an ugly, spiteful adolescent. But is she seeing things as they really are? Where must she look to find her true reflection and a life she can claim as her own? Giovanna's search leads her to two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. Adrift, she vacillates between these two cities, falling into one then climbing back to the other. This powerful new novel set in a divided Naples by bestselling author Elena Ferrante is a singular portrayal of the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.

About the Author

Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, The Lost Daughter, and the four volumes of 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. She is also the author of a children's picture book illustrated by Mara Cerri, The Beach at Night, and a work of non-fiction, Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey. Incidental Inventions, her collected Guardian columns, were published in 2019. Ann Goldstein is one of the most accomplished translators from the Italian working today. Best known for her translations of Elena Ferrante's oeuvre, she has also brought to Anglo-Saxon readers novels by Primo Levi, Pierpaolo Pasolini, Alessandro Baricco and other classic and contemporary Italian writers.