My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante is a complete enigma.  No one knows what she looks like or even when she was born, let alone what her real name is.  I think it's because the books that she has written seem to be pretty personal. In this particular novel, which was translated from Italian to English, a young girl is followed growing up in Naples, yearning to be a writer. There are a lot of fairly heavy topics that Ferrante addresses in this novel: everything from physical violence, to economic and class differences to child sexual abuse.

In this book, the main character is Elena Greco - called Lanu - and her best friend Lila.  All of the children in this neighborhood are tight, much as the neighborhood itself is tight and they all know who stands where in the power struggles. There is a scene where, for instance, Lila turns the power dynamics on her head by threatening the sons of a wealthy store owner with a knife after they tried to grab Elena and pull her into their car (the implications of why are there but never explicitly stated, which makes Lila's actions even more noble).

What I loved about this novel and, I hope, about her future novels, is that this one seemed to be a very intimate and thorough examination of growing up female in Naples at a particular time in history - this was the 1930's and 40's in Italy.  I have to admit, because my grandmother grew up in Italy during this time period I was drawn to it maybe a bit more than the average person. That being said, this book was phenomenal and I look forward to reading more. 

Smoke in Your Eyes by Caitlyn Doughty

Oh my gosh, Caitlyn Doughty makes death completely and utterly acceptable and not scary, kinda like Mary Roach did in Stiff, Doughty grew up in Hawaii and was obsessed with death as a teenager in high school, although I don't really see her as being Goth or anything like that. She volunteered in the mortuary in her local high school and got a bachelor's in medieval history (can you get more death obsessed people then those that lived in that time period?!) - her thesis was on dead babies and the role that they played in witchcraft. While in college and after graduation, she decided to work in a crematorium so that she could see real life death. This book is a memoir of her time at Westwind, a funeral home and crematorium in San Francisco.

I admit that I'm not "functionally morbid" (which is how Doughty describes herself) or even morbid at all actually but I loved this book.  First and foremost, her voice is totally amazing and she's very witty.  I really enjoyed reading it - because I could HEAR her telling me the stories.  It was like her voice was in my ear. I loved learning about how modernity deals with death and her comparisons to the history of death were fascinating - for such a short book, I learned a TON about death (it's history and how it is currently viewed). I also appreciated the journey that working at Westwind provided to Caitlyn.  She obviously learned a lot about herself and her emotions deepened tremendously. In fact, she appeared to achieve a level of peace and acceptance of mortality that most people don't have with regards to their own imminent deaths.

That being said, this book is NOT an academic rendering of death.  There aren't statistics in it and it isn't something that Caitlyn spent months and months in a library researching.  There is some historical anecdote in there (and she cites sources) but ultimately, this book is about her experience with death and the history just provides the context within which she's working.  I loved it nonetheless and look forward to reading other books by her.