One of the many activities that has had to give way as a working mum of two is reading for pleasure. But I’m trying hard to find just a few minutes each day to read more. This explains why I am more than a decade late to making my way through Elena Ferrante’s magnificent four-book series, the Neapolitan Quartet.
The books are extraordinary for the beautiful way they’re written and their portrayal of family life and class conflict, as well as their exploration of the very different worlds of men and women. But the reason I have fallen in love with the series – which follows the relationship between Elena Greco and Raffaella “Lila” Cerullo as they grow through girlhood into womanhood – is because they are fundamentally about female friendship.
At the same time, in my perhaps less high-brow moments, I’ve been watching Amandaland, a spin-off from the BBC’s hit comedy Motherland. Set a couple of years after the events of Motherland, Amanda, a snobbish, social-climbing and social-media-obsessed mum of two, is attempting to forge new life for herself post-divorce. Although the humour of the series is powered by Amanda’s cringe-worthy pronouncements on everything from comprehensive education – “I’m actually glad I took the kids out of private school: they’ve got way more chance of getting into Oxbridge from a bog-standard state” – to the London property scene (south Harlesden is renamed SoHar for a chichi edge), its secret ingredient is female friendship. Anne, Amanda’s old school-gate friend, is the greatest character of all. Ever-underestimated, she remains loyal, resilient and loving, despite her harsh treatment by Amanda. Moving between these two cultural poles, I find myself relating to the friendships portrayed, and longing to see my own friends more.
In the Neapolitan Quartet, Elena and Lila adore each other; would kill for one another. And yet there is jealousy, deceit, sabotage. We can envy those whom we love, and we should not be ashamed of it. It is human nature: being over the moon on a friend’s wedding day, but also craving the companionship of a partner; rushing to cuddle a mate’s newborn while desperately wanting a baby of your own.
I am enormously fortunate to have not just one “Brilliant Friend” – as per the title of the opening novel in Ferrante’s series – but several. From school days through university, work and parenting, I have formed a network of extraordinary women, all of whom I am immensely grateful for. These relationships make me. They give me strength and support; laughs and tears.
Other than my parents, the one thing I craved more than anything else during the Covid lockdowns was a glass of wine with a girlfriend; the tight squeeze of friendship that is so different to that of a partner. When I was at my lowest, I knew I would be OK if I could just have an hour with one of them. I wasn’t alone in this: there’s science behind it. The Oxford University psychologist Robin Dunbar has been studying friendship for decades. He has shown that the feeling of social warmth we get from our friends appears the same way on brain scans as the feeling of physical warmth when holding a warm object.
Research also suggests that the way men and women approach friendship is very different. Women tend to have more intense, intimate friendships than men. We share our innermost thoughts, ask for advice on the most difficult aspects of our lives and don’t want to hear the sanitised version of events from others. Men, some have argued, form looser friendships and will more readily assign the label “friend”.
I genuinely have no idea how some men manage to fill the time when out together. I have lost count of the number of times my husband has returned home after a night with friends only to be utterly incapable of telling me one thing that is going on in anyone’s life. How is X’s wife/partner? Don’t know. How did Y’s child get on in that show/sports event/difficult relationship? No idea.
I would be horrified if my friends believed I had ever treated them like Lila does at times in the Neopolitan novels, or as Amanda does Anne in Amandaland. I cannot have been alone in cheering as Anne tried to stop her friend making a huge mistake: “As your best friend it is my duty to tell you things that you might not want to hear.”
Another side effect of working motherhood is that I don’t have as much time for my friends as I would wish; we sometimes go months, even years, without seeing each other. But I am always thinking of them. And when we meet, the time and distance crumble away. Last weekend, my family joined one of my school friends and her children for lunch. The hours rolled by, more bottles of wine were opened.
Lunch turned to dinner, and our two families watched Gladiators together, just as my friend and I had done in the Nineties. As our eight-years-olds marvelled, we saw it all afresh through adult eyes. My friend had even raided her office for oversized foam hands of the sort given to the show’s in-studio audience. It was joyous in its simplicity – though quite why a private healthcare company would ever have had need for giant foam fingers is beyond me.
I know, too, that when I see another friend in six weeks’ time, it will seem like a few days since we last met, rather than the year it has been. We will reminisce about university, catch up on what others are up to, swap stories of our work and children. It will just be us. No husbands. No kids. Talking nonsense, laughing, and loving it. Thank you, to all my brilliant friends.
[See also: The myth of a noble America]
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This article appears in the 19 Feb 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Europe Alone