The Lying Life of Adults

Categories:

19.49

“AN INCENDIARY PORTRAIT OF THE VOLCANIC CURRENTS OF SEX AND BETRAYAL.”-Mail on Sunday

THE INTERNATIONAL No. 1 BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF MY BRILLIANT FRIEND

A BBC2 Between The Covers Book Club Pick

BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2021 – SHORTLISTED FOR FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR

Soon to be a NETFLIX original series

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? Where must she look to find her true reflection and a life she can claim as her own?

Giovanna’s search leads her to 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, a place of excess and vulgarity. Adrift, she vacillates between these two cities, falling into one then climbing back to the other.

Set in a divided Naples, The Lying Life of Adults is a singular portrayal of the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

“This is no amiable coming-of-age tale? the most intense writing about the experiences and interior life of a girl on the cusp of adulthood that I have ever read. It is brilliant.”-The Financial Times

“An astonishing, deeply moving tale.”-The Guardian  

“Ferrante confronts female sexual awakening with such an absence of romantic enchantment it leaves you gasping.”-The Daily Mail

 

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:

“Brilliant as always.”-Jan on Amazon

“A tightly crafted and gripping story.”-Maxwell on Goodreads

“Excellent book. My only complaint was that it ended too soon!”-Mhairi on Amazon

“I woke up eagerly looking forward to reading more of this novel every single day.”-Violet on Goodreads

“Fans of Elena Ferrante will not be disappointed.”-Lesley on Amazon

ISBN: 9781787702400

In stock

Two years before leaving home my father said to my mother that I was very ugly. The sentence was uttered under his breath, in the apartment that my parents, newly married, had bought in Rione Alto, at the top of Via San Giacomo dei Capri. Everything – the spaces of Naples, the blue light of a very cold February, those words – remained fixed. But I slipped away, and am still slipping away, within these lines that are intended to give me a story, while in fact I am nothing, nothing of my own, nothing that has really begun or really been brought to completion: only a tangled knot, and nobody, not even the one who at this moment is writing, knows if it contains the right thread for a story or is merely a snarled confusion of suffering, without redemption.

Additional information

Weight 0.396 kg
Dimensions 13.5 × 21 × 2.8 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

300

Language

English

Edition

Export ed

Dewey

853.92 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

Gift Vouchers

Can’t find the right book, why not give a gift card and let them find that special book. 

Learn More >

Click and Collect/Special Requests

If we don’t have the book you want, we will do our best to order it for you and often have it in a few days.

Learn More >

Receive the latest news

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Get notified about new articles

Find the right book...