Once an ambitious and promising student at an elite university in Paris, Maia is now 26, living in Milan, and stuck in a dead-end job at a cafe and a dysfunctional relationship with an older man. Until one day her life seems to change: thanks to a friend's recommendation, and despite not knowing anything about social media, she is hired to work for Gloria, an 18-year-old influencer with millions of followers.
Graziosi tries to knit these threads together to add layers of suspense and mystery, but her language struggles to keep up with the demands of the story. There’s an overreliance on direct exposition to carry us through scenes, which undercuts the charm and acuity of Maia’s wry voice in the novel’s early pages.
There isn’t much thrill in the thrall; the heat doesn’t really get turned up on the women’s interdependence though the novel, translated from the Italian by Lucy Rand, hints in that direction. Nonetheless, Ms. Graziosi is a shrewd and funny chronicler of social-media and influencer culture.
The strength of The Other Profile is evident in how it cannily conveys the ways that Maia — and all of us — are implicated in this dynamic, how she’s only half-interested in wriggling out of it, and how escape may be impossible. As a satire of influencer culture it’s old-hat, but as a character study it has bite.
