The TV adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend has returned to Sky for season three, Olivia Colman was nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Lost Daughter, based on one of Ferrante’s novels, and Ferrante has just published a collection of essays, In the Margins. Ferrante’s true identity has never been revealed but it’s at times like this that rumours start flying once more. It’s the Italian writer Domenico Starnone, say some. No, it’s his wife, the translator Anita Raja, say others. People have been through their bins and everything and, because I don’t want to put them through that again, I feel it is only right to confess: I am Elena Ferrante.
You may well ask how can a small Jewish woman from north London who rarely travels further than Brent Cross be Ferrante? Well, let me tell you it has not been easy. But most of the speculation around my identity has arisen from the assumption that she couldn’t possibly be a small Jewish woman from north London who goes almost nowhere, and that has served me well. It has kept literary sleuths at bay, left my bins undisturbed and put me beyond suspicion. In all my years penning this column, not one editor has asked: “Did you, by chance, write those thrilling, searing novels about a formidable female friendship in postwar Naples spanning a lifetime?” If I had been confronted, I would probably have confessed. But it never happened.
Some of you may be sceptical, given my lack of Italian, my lack of literary talent and my lack of stamina, which means 800 words and I’m done. But fear not, I will assuage those doubts as powerfully and fluently as I depicted women from impoverished backgrounds rattling the cage of gender in a profoundly patriarchal society. And I have some acquaintance with Neapolitan culture, as the tri-flavoured ice cream that came moulded into a single block was a highlight of my childhood. Strawberry, chocolate and vanilla all at once. We could scarcely believe it. So maybe my journey started there.
Probably it fed into later events but, looking back, “Elena Ferrante” didn’t properly gain traction until my children were little and I made up characters for them. One was “Mrs Sideways”, who did everything sideways. Another was “Mrs Two Soups”, based on Julie Walters in the Victoria Wood sketch, who could not serve a meal without trembling and spilling. And a third was “Elena Ferrante”, who wrote thrilling, searing novels about female friendships and also thrilling, searing novels about the ambivalence of motherhood (The Lost Daughter). To be fair, Mrs Sideways and Mrs Two Soups were much more popular than Elena Ferrante. (“Mummy, don’t do the searing ambivalent lady! Do the sideways lady. Do the shaky lady.”) But she was born. And then she lived.
I don’t have intimate knowledge of the Neapolitan dialect and I don’t speak Italian. I can’t even pronounce “nduja” correctly. But it’s amazing what happens when you are in “the zone”. The character takes over. It was like that with Mrs Sideways. You could say I was in a trancelike state as I ricocheted off the kitchen cupboards and fed peas into my ear. And it was like that with “Elena Ferrante”. The language just came as the ideas flowed. Sometimes characters merged, which was odd because I’d be thinking about marital disintegration and how you might reel from an infidelity and a vicious divorce (The Days of Abandonment) while feeding peas into my ear. Or slopping soup everywhere. As for my personal experiences not corresponding with those of the books, it’s fair to say I’ve never worked in a sausage factory or been raped by the father of a friend. My mother was never angry and limping but one day I arrived at primary school to discover my best friend Helen was best friends with Linda. So don’t tell me I don’t know how cruel and changeable female friendships can be.
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I sincerely hope this clears matters up so that Starnone and Raja can be left in peace. But while we are here I feel I should confess I am Banksy and Satoshi Nakamoto, and I killed Princess Diana. I want a clean slate.
No friends, no Covid: not true
A Korean doctor claimed this week that anyone who has yet to have Covid probably has no friends. To which I would say: Ma Sang-hyuk, vice-president of the Korean Vaccine Society, I have yet to have Covid but if you had read my novels you would know that friendship is something I take extremely seriously, even if my secret identity has meant deception has always been at its heart. I’ll give you that.
He has retracted the remark but it put me in mind of when your kids had nits at school. Or didn’t. If they did it was gross but if they didn’t then, well, they obviously weren’t mixing with the other kids. It’s like one of those either/or games. What would you prefer? A gross kid with an insect-ridden scalp or a kid who is playing all alone and may end up a serial killer? As it happens, lice jump and can live for a short time in the environment, so your kid may be playing alone, still get them, and when he becomes a serial killer . . . you’ll have had no warning.
Covid, I think we have to accept, moves in mysterious ways. I know couples where he has it and she never gets it, or vice versa, despite sharing a bed. And so on. Meanwhile, I have friends who go back 40 years and I hope they’ll bear with. Even though they must be reeling today.
