My Brilliant Friend

"My Brilliant Friend" is the first novel of the Neapolitan quartet. It’s a story about the childhood of two girls from a poor neighborhood in Naples and the beginning of a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The girls’ paths diverge for the first time even after elementary school. Family circumstances force one of them to quit school and go to work in her father’s shoemaking workshop. Throughout their lives, an invisible rivalry accompanying genuine closeness will drive them down different roads. Each friend will strive to become the best, each will experience both success and disappointment; both will face big trials and tragic events. But the strong thread of childhood friendship—sometimes binding people even against their will—will repeatedly force Lila and Elena to return to each other.