The Story of a New Name

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante is the second volume of the Neapolitan novels — the continuation of the story of Elena and Lila through their young womanhood in 1960s Naples. Lila has married young and discovered that marriage to a wealthy man does not mean freedom; Elena has escaped to university in Pisa and found that education is both liberation and a form of loss. Ferrante traces the evolving friendship with her characteristic ferocity and psychological depth, showing how the two women’s diverging paths illuminate both the possibilities and the constraints available to women of their class and generation. Published by Europa Editions, The Story of a New Name deepens everything that made the first novel so compelling — richer, darker, and more complete in its portrait of the forces that shape a woman’s life.