How We Eclipse Women's Literary Brilliance With 'Scandal'

The assertion that Cline, however subtly, owes her brilliance and accolades to a male hand is recurring in literary circles whenever a woman pens powerfully-like when some critics thought Elena Ferrante was a pen name for a man, even though the Italian novelist's Neapolitan works told a story that felt so subjective, so deeply and unquestionably female. These novels, too, were a portrait of a lifelong female friendship (or frenemy-ship), set against the backdrop of a community that experienced poverty and domestic and mob violence. In Lila and Elena's desires for escape, fury at the world and obsession with each other, many of us who succumbed to Ferrante Fever saw an exhaustive exploration of a female psyche-not necessarily ours, but someone's. That felt new and thrilling.