March through October became a torrent of Elena Ferrante, when I wasn’t wringing my hands and hunching my shoulders over work. I’m not earning any originality points for this pick, as one among hordes of women (and quite a few men) who’ve gotten drunk on any or all of the anonymous Italian writer’s seven novels to date — though I think of the Neapolitan Novels as four installments of one very long book. I’ve been surprised and excited to encounter this writing from inside women’s lives and bodies that’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. I also struck up an admiring acquaintance with Ferrante’s translator, Ann Goldstein, whose work has led me to read Primo Levi and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
