My word, this woman can write. I was fairly luke warm about part one in the four part Neapolitan Novels - My Brilliant Friend, but this one, the second novel in the series, has converted me to the brilliance of her writing and her story telling. Picking up where My Brilliant Friend finished - Lila's wedding - we are immediately thrust into the rest of the reception. The two childhood friends are now 16, and this novel covers much of the next ten years in their lives. As much a story about friendship and growing up as a story of the savagery of the society they live in, it really is gripping reading. Both girls are struggling to break out of the poor, downtrodden, violent community they have been born into, finding different ways and means, not always successful. The book is huge, and really over the ten years there is not a great deal of plot. But what is so stunning is the author's, and it also has to be said her translator's, skill and uncanny ability to dig deep into the souls of her characters. Books three and four also look like whoppers, and no doubt will be just as grim, but riveting reading as this one.
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