We visit the hilltop district whose charms and complexity inspired the author’s new novel, The Lying Life of Adults

Elena Ferrante’s new novel dominates the window display of Raffaello, a bookshop in the Naples neighbourhood of Rione Alto, and stacks of copies fill its tiny interior.

The presence of a bookshop is among the first notable distinctions between Rione Alto, the main location for La Vita Bugiarda Degli Adulti (The Lying Life of Adults), and Rione Luzzatti, the neglected, rundown area where Ferrante’s phenomenally successful quartet of books that began with My Brilliant Friend are believed to have been set.

Perched on the highest part of the Vomero hilltop district, for decades Rione Alto was a rural zone, known for cultivating so many vegetables that the few people living there were nicknamed “broccoli”.

Now the area is home to affluent Neapolitans, among them doctors, lawyers and professors, who grew up in places akin to Rione Luzzatti.

“This is where a lot of people from poor districts moved to, many wanting to forget where they came from,” said Luca Di Costanza, who manages Raffaello bookshop. “Just like the father, Andrea, in Ferrante’s new book – he wants to bury his past.”

In her latest novel, Ferrante immediately captivates the reader with the opening line: “Two years before leaving home, my father told my mother that I was very ugly.” The stinging remark is overheard by the book’s main protagonist, Giovanna, during a discussion between her leftwing parents over her failure to keep up at school, and charts the course of her turbulent adolescence.

Set in the 1990s, this is a vivid world typical of Ferrante: of relationships, family divides and the festering emotions of unresolved conflict.

“The main theme is the relationship between children and parents, and how adults use lies in life,” said Di Costanza. “The lie is not always bad – maybe it was used to cover up trouble – but after the child discovers the truth, it gets unleashed in a bad way.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anita Raja, a Rome-based translator, was suggested to be the real Elena Ferrante in 2016. Photograph: http://www.nybooks.com

Once again, Ferrante also manages to sweep readers away by depicting Naples in all its charm, contrasts and complexity.

“Naples has two souls,” said Di Costanza. “The true Naples is the fusion of the two souls – one is the intellectual Naples, the other is the traditional, where people still hold dear traditions, as that’s what gives them safety.”

About 30 people crammed into Raffaello’s last Wednesday evening for a Ferrante “vigil” ahead of the release of the Italian version of the book at the turn of midnight. But outside the shop, some people in the area haven’t read Ferrante’s works.

“I’ve heard of her on TV, but I don’t have time to read books,” said Maria Arcopinto, who runs a fruit and vegetable stall on Via San Giacomo dei Capri, the street where the fictional Giovanna and her parents live.

Carla Santojanni, whose husband grew up in Rione Alto, said: “I saw the TV series [for My Brilliant Friend] and am now curious to read the new book … especially as I’ve been told that the apartment building I’m about to move into is the one featured in it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Elena Ferrante depicts the ‘charm, contrasts and complexity’ of Naples in her latest book. Photograph: Keren Su/Getty Images

With the new book, to be released in English in June next year, comes the inevitable return of intrigue over the author’s identity: Elena Ferrante is a pseudonym. Via San Giacomo dei Capri is close to Via Gemito, also the name of a book by Domenico Starnone, the husband of Anita Raja, a translator who journalist Claudio Gatti claimed in 2016 is the author.

Over in nearby Vomero, which also features in the book, people have a strong suspicion that the writer lives in the neighbourhood and that she may have even signed up as a member of IoCiSto, a bookshop owned by citizens and run by volunteers.

“During the first year after we opened, a woman came in and asked lots of questions about the shop and the story behind it,” said Alberto Della Sala, the bookshop’s director. “We believe that it was her.” A corner of IoCiSto is dedicated to Ferrante, and about three dozen copies of La Vita Bugiarda Degli Adulti have sold since Thursday. “That’s a lot for us and for a book launched midweek,” adds Sala. “We expect more in the Christmas lead-up. I’ve only read the first few pages, but it is beautiful.”

Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, which told the story of the lifelong friendship and rivalry between two women, sold more than 10m copies around the world, 1.5m in Italy. My Brilliant Friend’s adaptation into a TV series was also a huge success, and a second season covering the second novel is expected to be aired next year.

Ferrante’s first five books, beginning with Troubling Love in 1992, attracted a cult following in Italy, but, paradoxically, the author only really started to capture Italian readers after the success of My Brilliant Friend abroad.

“I was only encouraged to read it after hearing about it from foreign friends,” said Francesca Iarusso, a PhD student in Naples. “Then I became fascinated. I liked the books because they were very feminine in regards sentiments that aren’t so easily expressed by other authors. As for Ferrante’s identity, I don’t care.”

Maurizio Pagano, an author who grew up in Rione Luzzatti, said: “Unfortunately, Italy is a country that doesn’t read much, so Ferrante hasn’t had the same prominence here as she has had abroad.”