The Lying Life of Adults

From the best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, a powerful new novel set in a divided Naples

TO BE ADAPTED INTO AN ORIGINAL TV SERIES BY NETFLIX AND FANDANGO

"Ferrante shows again how she is unbeatable."-The Times (UK)
"Modern, urgent, truthful."-Lucy Hughes-Hallett, The Telegraph
"Elena Ferrante is an expert chronicler of adolescence and its many indignities, as well as its erratic, overwhelming passions."-The Observer

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? Into which mirror must she look to find herself and save herself? She is searching for a new face in 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, which professes to be a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves between these two cities, disoriented by the fact that, whether high or low, the city seems to offer no answer and no escape.
Elena Ferrante is unsurpassed in her ability to draw readers into her books from the very first page and she proves this again with The Lying Life of Adults, pulling us into what the Italian trade magazine Il libraio described as ‘not a mere story but an entire world.’ The millions of readers who found themselves addicted to My Brilliant Friend and the Neapolitan quartet will find that this new novel has the same addictive, do-not-disturb-I’m-reading qualities.

TO BE PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN OVER 40 COUNTRIES: AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER IN THE MAKING!

THE ITALIAN EDITION OF THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS (November 2019) HAS SOLD OVER 300,000 COPIES, REMAINING STEADY AT THE TOP END OF NATIONAL BESTSELLER LISTS

BBC Radio 4 Book At Bedtime adaptation to be broadcast over 2 weeks at time of publication.

"Modern, urgent, truthful." -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett ― The Telegraph

"Elena Ferrante is an expert chronicler of adolescence and its many indignities, as well as its erratic, overwhelming passions." ― The Observer

"Ferrante is unbeatable at pulling you inside the mind of a teenage girl, making you see how everything that looks irrational from the outside - the moods, the silences, the jealousy, tears, fears and resentments - are utterly logical and reasonable." ― The Times

“Layer by layer, piece by piece, with her customary deftness, Ferrante builds up her story, introducing new characters and bits of information, as Giovanna’s once safe and sane world becomes ever more slippery…. Ferrante has a voice very much her own.” ― The TLS

“The most intense writing about the experiences and interior life of a girl on the cusp of adulthood that I have ever read.” -- Isabel Berwick

“Exquisitely moody.” -- Merve Emre ― The Atlantic

“Elena Ferrante is so good.… an astonishing, deeply moving tale of the sorts of wisdom, beauty and knowledge that remain as unruly as the determinedly inharmonious faces of these women.” -- Lara Feigel ― The Guardian

“Ferrante’s page-turner talent for suspenseful storytelling and scenes teeming with vivid characters finds terrific scope … From this gorgeous and squalid two-tier city that haunts her imagination comes another compulsive novel.” -- Peter Kemp ― The Sunday Times

“The accurate and evocative depiction of adolescence is also a significant factor in the fierce devotion inspired by the works of the Italian writer Elena Ferrante … Ann Goldstein, who has translated all of Ferrante’s works into English, does so again here with precision and poise.” -- Miranda Collinge ― Esquire

“An incendiary portrait of the volcanic currents of sex and betrayal rumbling away beneath polite society.” -- Anthony Cummins ― The Mail on Sunday

About the Author