A mini-article as printed in the 2024 Talon Fall Magazine.

A contentious friendship takes center stage in Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend.” Growing up against the backdrop of poverty and struggle in 1950s Naples, main character Elena Greco pursues the only path to upward mobility she has as a young girl: success in the grueling and expensive Italian education system. While academic achievement comes painstakingly for Elena, taking up hours upon hours of studying, it’s effortless for her pugnacious and sought-after best friend. 

Ferrante’s sweeping coming-of-age tale may seem trapped in a far-off and long-ago land, but it begs the very same questions society faces today. How do we find who we’re meant to be in this world? What do we do with familial pressures? And does shirking norms and expectations truly “stick it” to society? What quantifies the cost of individuality as ‘worth it’?

Elena and Lila approach these questions, but the answers often evade them. Every bright girl becomes a poor housewife. The shoemaker’s son becomes a shoemaker himself. As it seems like their futures are fading, their stories predetermined, the two friends cling to one another, if begrudgingly, from girlhood to late adulthood.

After reading the world Ferrante built, I understand why “My Brilliant Friend” won the New York Times’ highest literary praise of the 21st century. Her craft is exquisite, at times understated, at others beautiful prose. Whether you agree with this ranking or not, I urge you to read the book for yourself and sit with the larger message that underscores a girl growing up in Naples.