Plot
The novel begins in 2010 when the narrator, Elena Greco (Lenù), receives a phone call from the son of an old friend, saying that his mother has disappeared, leaving no traces of herself in the house. Elena recognizes this behavior as something her friend Raffaella Cerullo (whom she calls Lila, and everyone else calls Lina) has always talked about doing, and believes her disappearance to be a conscious decision. In the spirit of their loving but ambivalent ways towards each other, Elena breaks the promise she had made not to write about her friend, and begins to put on paper everything she can remember about Lila, beginning in 1950s' Naples.
Elena and Lila grow up in a poor neighborhood full of violence and strife. Very few children receive an education beyond elementary school. Elena is diligent and captures the attention of maestra Oliviero, one of her primary school teachers, who encourages her to escape the life of the impoverished plebeian class. To everyone's surprise, the very rebellious Lila turns out to be a prodigy who has taught herself to read and write. She quickly earns the highest grades in the class, seemingly without effort. Elena is both fascinated and intimidated by Lila, especially after Lila writes a story which Elena feels shows real genius. She begins to push herself to keep up with Lila. Once, when Lila throws Elena's doll into the basement chute of the local loan shark, Elena does the same to Lila's doll, as proof that she can be as bold as her friend. When Lila fearlessly goes to the loan shark to ask for the return of the dolls, Elena goes with her, though they are ultimately unable to retrieve them.
The paths of the two girls diverge when Lila's parents refuse to pay for further education after elementary school. After being pressured by the concerned teacher, Elena's father agrees to pay for Elena to continue studying. Lila insists in going to middle school also, which so enrages her father that he throws her through a glass window one floor above the courtyard, breaking her arm. Lila encourages Elena to skip school and go to the sea, changing her mind and rushing home soon afterwards. Elena understands that this was an ambivalent attempt to get Elena's parents to withdraw their support for her education. Elena forgives Lila, knowing how hard it is for Lila to be left behind while she moves forward. Elena attends middle school and eventually high school.
With Elena studying, Lila occupies herself with her father's shoe shop. Much to his irritation, she dreams of designing new types of shoes to make them rich. She also grows very beautiful, attracting most of the neighborhood's young men, including Marcello Solara, the young son of the powerful local Camorra leader. Despite being pressured by her family to marry Marcello, Lila resists because she considers the Solaras to be fundamentally evil. To escape Marcello, she accepts Stefano Carracci, the son of the loan shark and owner of the local grocery, when he asks her to marry him. Stefano seems to appreciate Lila's originality, by buying a pair of shoes she made that are her original design, and thus convincing her father that her ideas are valuable. Lila and Stefano marry when she is sixteen, throwing a large party to which they invite the whole neighborhood. The party is the climax of the novel. There Lenù reflects on the way professor Olivero used to speak about the people of the neighborhood as "plebs":
At that moment I knew what the plebs were, much more clearly than when, years earlier, she had asked me. The plebs were us. The plebs were that fight for food and wine, that quarrel over who should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those increasingly vulgar toasts. The plebs were my mother, who had drunk wine and now was leaning against my father’s shoulder, while he, serious, laughed, his mouth gaping, at the sexual allusions of the metal dealer. They were all laughing, even Lila, with the expression of one who has a role and will play it to the utmost.
The novel ends with the arrival of Marcello Solara, who was invited against Lila's will, and arrives wearing the shoes that she had made and that Stefano bought. This pivotal moment shows Lila and Lenù that Stefano was actually no different from Marcello.
