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    YourFriendlyLibrarianStephieStassa Edwards
    3/14/16 12:59pm

    IRL, I’m a Librarian, so peddling books (both in digital, and traditional formats) is what I do.

    This is the first I’m hearing of this author.

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      Emma GolddiggerYourFriendlyLibrarianStephie
      3/14/16 1:06pm

      Read the Neapolitan Novels, they’re great!!

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      SipowitzEmma Golddigger
      3/14/16 1:09pm

      Well, the chocolate and vanilla ones are great, the strawberry is just ok and usually just ends up being thrown out.

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    SpringSprungStassa Edwards
    3/14/16 12:59pm

    Maybe she’s so secretive because she’s a woman and heard of the internet?

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      courtSpringSprung
      3/14/16 1:00pm

      hmmmmm.....

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      TremulousCadenceSlowSpringSprung
      3/14/16 1:18pm

      Yep, I’ve picked up a FB stalker on my public author page (and I discovered today that he’s following me on Twitter now, too—joy!). I am very glad to have a pen name between supremely midlist me and the internet’s crazies who might want to show up IRL. Most people who contact me are lovely, lovely, lovely. But some are not.

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    Emma GolddiggerStassa Edwards
    3/14/16 1:21pm

    People are probably trying to figure out if she’s pretty enough to be worth reading.

    Also, calling them “confessional novels” feels a little reductive to me. I agree with James Wood that they’re “intensely, violently personal” but in the Neapolitan Novels - haven’t finished The Days of Abandonment yet, haven’t read the other one - there’s so much about politics (neighborhood politics, gender politics, class politics, politics politics) and philosophy and art and how dramatically all that other stuff shapes the personal stuff. And vice versa.

    ALSO also, I think it’s awesome that she’s hiding her identity, so she can give interviews about the actual substance of the books and not about what she’s wearing and what’s her favorite sexual position and all that shit. People need to stop saying she’s a man, though. As my mom very wisely said, “No man would be that angry about the kind of things she’s angry about.”

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      bachelorpodEmma Golddigger
      3/14/16 3:21pm

      ALSO also, I think it’s awesome that she’s hiding her identity, so she can give interviews about the actual substance of the books and not about what she’s wearing and what’s her favorite sexual position and all that shit.

      Exactly. If it’s possible to avoid offering up one’s private life on the altar of ravenous public consumption, why not do it? It probably takes a great deal of ego control, but when I see how frequently artists and other celebrities are disemboweled to satisfy the public appetite for human sacrifice, I can’t say I blame her. In the era of Facebook, to choose privacy is almost seen as illegal.

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      North countyEmma Golddigger
      3/14/16 4:32pm

      I agree with your mother. There’s a definite feminist bent to the novels, and a too-accurate depiction of the anger women feel at being marginalized constantly. If a man wrote them, I would be shocked at his perceptiveness.

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    eazypeazyStassa Edwards
    3/14/16 12:57pm

    I just started the first book in the series, and it’s taking me some time to get into it. I’m only on page 31, so I need to give it some more time.

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      Sprocheteeazypeazy
      3/14/16 1:03pm

      I gave up after when I was only a little over halfway done. It was well written, I just didn’t feel invested in the characters.

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      LostAnotherBurnerPasswordeazypeazy
      3/14/16 1:12pm

      I’ve read all 4, and I fell in and out of love with them repeatedly. Definitely a slow start. Sometimes I would get hugely frustrated with the characters, in part because they’re making bad decisions that I can see myself making (even when I didn’t make the bad choice, you can still sympathize while you want to yell at them). I think that makes it pretty good literature.

      I’m the type who picks up a book and plows through it quickly, but I’d recommend moving more slowly through these. Totally worth it but I read about a million other books while I worked a bit at at time on these.

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    courtStassa Edwards
    3/14/16 12:55pm

    So, Truman Capote is the author?

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      Global Beetcourt
      3/14/16 1:02pm

      This is a good comment and I’m sure the ghost of Harper Lee agrees.

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      courtGlobal Beet
      3/14/16 1:04pm

      Many thanks.

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    ConcertPitchStassa Edwards
    3/14/16 1:00pm

    Are these books even any good? The covers make them look like the literary equivalent to a Lifetime movie. I’m not meaning that to be snarky, either just an observation. I love me some She’s Too Young and I am not above that shit.

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      Emma GolddiggerConcertPitch
      3/14/16 1:09pm

      They’re fantastic and nothing like the covers suggest. The covers are actually intended to be kitschy (please be warned that there are some spoilers in that article before you click on it), which might sound a little insufferable, but trust me, these books epitomize the old adage, “Don’t judge a something by its whatever.” They are SO. FUCKING. GOOD.

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      fulanitaConcertPitch
      3/14/16 1:16pm

      The covers actually pain me be cause the books are excellent. I ordered them after many recommendations and without seeing the covers and when they arrived my first thought was that everyone had been bullshitting me.

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    Joseph FinnStassa Edwards
    3/14/16 1:31pm

    It's Johnathan Franzen, right?

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      Emma GolddiggerJoseph Finn
      3/14/16 1:39pm

      He shouted her out in some interview or another. I was like, ‘You are the personification of everything she hates, you fucking hack.’ I hope all his fans read Elena Ferrante because of that interview and then realize how bad Franzen sucks in comparison.

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      Joseph FinnEmma Golddigger
      3/14/16 3:28pm

      I didn’t know about this! That makes my idle joke funnier in my head.

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    BekabyStassa Edwards
    3/14/16 1:51pm

    Seems to me that she’s kind of inviting the memoir assumptions by having named her protagonist after herself. Like Mindy Kaling writing herself a character called Mindy Lahiri - it kind of implies a deep connection between the two, even in the face of the creator denying such a link.. I think it sucks that so much’s women’s writing is viewed through such a reductive lens, but perhaps Ferrante doesn’t think it sucks like I do.

    * - I haven’t read these books, so I dunno.

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      AnonymousCivilPersonStassa Edwards
      3/14/16 1:07pm
      What’s Really Behind Our Obsession Over Unmasking Elena Ferrante?

      I don’t know if I would say “Our”

      I mean I guess it is somewhat distracting.

      GIF
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        Kenny and the LlamasStassa Edwards
        3/14/16 1:14pm

        Very clever way to throw us off the scent, Elena.

        GIF
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          I may have lost my burner but that's just like your opinionKenny and the Llamas
          3/15/16 2:22pm

          Brilliant

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