“For Ferrante, whose novel bestows on familiar experiences an ardent, unreal shimmer, growing up also involves learning how to cultivate a talent for deception that approached a talent for writing fiction [ . . . ] The end of The Lying Life of Adults suggests that the way to reckon with the ‘snarled confusion of suffering’ is literary partnership—that this marvelously disconcerting novel of disillusionment is a product of the grace extended to the liar by the writer [ . . . ] Always, Ferrante’s fiction reminds us that sometimes you need someone else to help gather the scattered fragments of your existence. A writer is a friend who can find the thread of your story when you are too blinding your lies to grasp it yourself. She can give you the beginning and end you need—if not in life, then in fiction.”
Read the full rave review in The Atlantic.
