Sex Is The Most Powerful Force In This 'Lying Life'
Elena Ferrante's latest is as slinky and scowling as a Neapolitan cat, and as promised, it's all about the part of life adults lie about: sex — and the chaos, infidelity and fear that accompany it.
The Lying Life of Adults, a new novel by the pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante, is slinky and scowling as a Neapolitan cat. As promised, its subject is the part of life that adults lie about — sex, yes, but more precisely the chaos, infidelity and fear that hang on sex, freighting it with meaning and danger.
For the novel's protagonist, Giovanna, her lying life begins the moment she overhears her father — cheerful, courteous, beloved — calling her ugly. Her sense of self is overthrown:
Everything — the spaces of Naples, the blue light of a very cold February, those words — remained
