Ferrante Uses Familiar Devices to Hook Readers

Elena Ferrante is an author who has been getting a lot of positive press lately and not without reason. She's an incisive, but charming writer with a good story to tell.

I just finished "My Brilliant Friend," the first book in her Neapolitan Novel series, and while I greatly enjoyed it -- even though it was difficult to keep track of who was who from time to time -- I couldn't help but be struck by her use of a couple of very basic devices to first suck readers in and then to get them to purchase the next book.