VOLUME 1: ISSUE 4
FALL 2022

Close Encounters

Estranged: Writing Friendship’s Dark Places

Gaia Girace and Margherita Mazzucco in My Brilliant Friend, season 2. Courtesy of HBO.

Sometimes friendships survive because of the things we don’t say. A few weeks ago, I was walking with a fellow writer down a short trail in Bread Loaf, Vermont, when our conversation turned to our shared love for Elena Ferrante. She told me, after some hesitation, that reading the Neapolitan Novels had left her feeling almost “sick” and “injured,” that the books continue to live inside her like . . .

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