I discovered Elena Ferrante’s work through the Internet, specifically Twitter. I saw tweets of praise from women writers, who applauded Ferrante’s embodiment of female friendship in the characters of Elena Greco and Raffaella Cerullo—known in the books as Lenu and Lila, respectively. Even with the very public declarations of affection for Ferrante’s books, reading the Neapolitan Novels felt like my own unique discovery; I saw myself in both women, in their wavering friendship, plagued with insecurity and ambition. This year, though friendships like Lenu and Lila’s have been on our minds (Taylor Swift’s squad included), the need to read a visceral and non-performative narrative of feels especially necessary. Which might be part of the reason why it’s been a summer of #FerranteFever.

This week, I made my way up to Symphony Space, on New York City’s Upper West Side, for a discussion of the Neapolitan Novels with a group of esteemed panelists. When I got there, what I saw was all at once an expected surprise: Of course Ferrante fans from all over New York City would be there for the Thalia’s Book Club discussion of her work, of course! Unlike similar panels, though, the author was not present; Ferrante’s purposeful anonymity sometimes overtakes celebration of her work. (One of the wittiest moments of the night was when a panelist referred to Ferrante’s much-discussed absence: “For Halloween, go as what you think she looks like.”) We gathered to celebrate Ferrante anyway, with friends and book club mates. We were there to hear the Neapolitan Novels discussed. We were there to listen. And as the evening began, the buzz of conversation turned to celebratory laughter and applause.

While the discussion was bookended with readings by actors Zoe Kazan and Amy Ryan (reading from My Brilliant Friend and The Story of the Lost Child, respectively), hearing Ferrante’s words read aloud wasn’t the highlight; the discussion to come was. Both illustrated the ever-present tensions between Lenu and Lila in their friendship that even as children manifests itself more as obsession than genuine affection. From the moment Lenu meets Lila, a competitive spark is ignited between the girls: for education, for affection, for men, for knowledge. Perhaps because there was more to narratively work with in The Story of the Lost Child, Ryan provided the stronger reading of the two, embodying Lenu’s flagging confidence in her abilities as a mother, compared to those of Aunt Lina, as Lenu’s children call Lila.

After author Amanda Stern provided some pointed one-liners in her introduction for the evening—“Some people even think she is male,” she said, pausing for a hiss from the audience, “but those people are men”—and Kazan read, the panelists walked to the stage to rounds of applause. Accompanying the moderator, New York Times Book Review editor Parul Sehgal, were a few other “Ferrante-philes”: New Yorker staff writer Judith Thurman, filmmaker John Waters, memoirist and economist Sonali Deraniyagala, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout.

The panelists each spoke about how they were drawn to her work. Sehgal spoke about her very own “brilliant friend,” who introduced her to the Neapolitan Novels by refusing to describe them. “She said, ‘They’re too intimate, they’re too exposed.’ I’m a good friend, so I said, ‘I don’t want you to ever feel exposed.’ And of course, I pick up the books on the way home, precisely to expose her, which is a very Ferrante-like impulse,” Sehgal said.