My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante: Part 1
My Brilliant Friend (Italian: L’amica geniale) is the first volume of a four-part series of novels known collectively as the Neapolitan Novels, written by Italian author Elena Ferrante and translated to English by Ann Goldstein. The novel begins in 2010 when the narrator, Elena Greco (Lenù), receives a phone call from the son of an old friend, saying that his mother has disappeared, leaving no traces of herself in the house. Elena recognizes this behavior as something her friend Raffaella Cerullo (whom she calls Lila, and everyone else calls Lina) has always talked about doing, and believes her disappearance to be a conscious decision. In the spirit of their loving but ambivalent ways towards each other, Elena breaks the promise she had made not to write about her friend, and begins to put on paper everything she can remember about Lila, beginning in 1950s’ Naples.