My Brilliant Friend: Prologue Summary & Analysis

Elena Greco receives a phone call from her friend Lila’s son. He tells her that his mother has been gone without a trace for two weeks. Elena can tell that Lila’s son is worried by his inability to find his mother, but Elena suspects that the “small-time crook and spendthrift” hasn’t actually looked very carefully for his mother at all. Lila’s son asks if his mother is with Elena at Elena’s home in Turin, but Elena scoffs at the idea that her old friend would ever leave Naples. When Lila’s son begins crying, Elena tells him to stop looking for his mother and to learn to stand on his “own two feet.” She hangs up.

Lila’s full name, Elena writes, is Raffaella Cerullo. Everyone has always called her Lina, but Elena has never called her anything but Lila—she knows that if she were ever to use another name for her friend, it would signal that their friendship was finished. Three decades ago, Elena recalls, Lila told her she wanted to “disappear without leaving a trace” and vanish from her life, never to be found. Elena is not surprised that Lila has found a way to do so.

As the days go by, Elena looks through her house and realizes she has nothing from Lila—not a gift nor a note. She calls Lila’s son, Rino, and tells him to look in his mother’s closet. Rino stays on the phone with Elena as he opens his mother’s closet: he reports that it is completely empty. Elena encourages him to look around the rest of the house. He stays on the phone as he does, reporting that all of his mother’s possessions are gone—she has even cut herself out of old photographs. The next day, Rino calls back in a state of heightened distress as he realizes that all of his mother’s possessions and papers are truly gone. He asks to come stay with Elena. Elena refuses him.

Frustrated with Lila for “overdoing it as usual,” Elena sits down, “angry,” to write all the details of her and Lila’s shared story.