On Monday, April 20th, I joined Ann Goldstein, Jennifer Croft, and Sam Bett–translators all—for Our Brilliant Friends: After-Dinner Book Club and Watch Party, with Michael Reynolds, an editor at Europa Editions, the American publisher of Elena Ferrante. Every week for three weeks now, Ann reads a bit from Ferrante’s forthcoming book, The Lying Lives of Adults, and Michael leads a conversation. I had had a long day, working on a piece about the plague, attending Zoom Italian class (we read a wonderful story from the Decameron, featuring a generous character named Carapresa), and by the time the Ferrante event rolled around, I was tired. Had a little trouble with my Zoom controls. Michael is a good moderator, but he took me by surprise, asking me what classical author Ferrante most resembled. I narrowed it down to the dramatists, and then chose Sophocles. But I have changed my mind. I should have said Euripides. He has a lot of female who have fraught relationships. In other news, I’m completely hooked on the HBO production of “My Brilliant Friend.”