“I have to say this is a tempest in a teapot” – in the grand scheme of things, absolutely.
But to those of us who loved the books, and who reveled in the idea of their author living, observing life, and writing in the shadows… it’s a bummer. And I’m not one all bound up with the fantasy that Elena Ferrante was herself a Neapolitan who rose up from poverty. I mean, I don’t hold it against Cormac McCarthy that he wasn’t born and raised poor and unschooled on horse ranches of southern Texas… I still love his work.