Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet belongs to the literary canon of women’s literature, telling a bildungsroman of friendship and feminism. The four books are narrated by Elena (Lenù) Greco and follow her and her best friend Raffaella (Lila) Cerullo, beginning with their adolescence in Naples and following them through the divergent paths they take as adults.

Ferrante weaves feminist history into the third installment, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, a revelatory title for a series that intersects with second wave feminism and highlights a dichotomy that awards partial success to one woman while leaving the other to her own devices.