My brilliant friend explores a childhood friendship between two girls, Lenu and Lila. Their childhoold is set against the backdrop of the slums of Naples in the 1950s. While Lenu, the narrator, is a top student, her friend is more than that - she’s brilliant, and enigmatic in the bargain. The competition between the two girls defines their friendship, driving then apart and pulling them back together over the years.

The text is gritty and realistic, told from a perspective that shifts as the narrator grows up - subtly, over time, becoming gradually more mature and aware of the grim realities her world offers. Horrible things happen over the course of the story - lives ruined, minor characters murdered, and so forth. But the story is not quite as morose and depressing as it might otherwise sound, because the characters seem to take it all in stride, adjusting to their reality and trying, with varying degrees of success, to fumble their way out of it. They are believable and sympathetic, if somewhat quirky and unlikable.

What really makes the story so fascinating, I think, are the fantasies that Lenu and Lila tell themselves, and the objects at the center of those fantasies. From their childhood terror of Don Achille, who they imagine to have abducted their dolls; to Lila’s fancifully constructed pair of shoes and the get-rich-scheme which surrounds them, these fantasies paradoxically ground the novel. They provide a set of mile markers for watching the girls as they transition into adulthood.

I’ve heard this book described as a sort of brain candy, but I think it’s quite a bit more substantial than the term implies. It is indeed entertaining and enjoyable, but it’s also a fascinating meditation on two complicated girls, and the difficult friendship between them.