Sally Rooney's most mature novel yet
To say the new novel from Sally Rooney is the most anticipated book of the year is somewhat of an understatement. When the release of Intermezzo was announced by Rooney's publisher Faber & Faber, social media was a cacophony of excitement and fan-girling. On publication day - 24 September - bookshops opened early so eager fans could get their hands on a copy of the new book by the author dubbed 'the voice of her generation'.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a proof copy of Intermezzo back in June and took it on holiday to France with me. I barely looked up from the page.
Set in Dublin in the summer of 2022, it follows two brothers Ivan, 22, a talented chess player and his older brother Peter, 32, a lawyer, in the days and weeks after the death of their father. The two men are light years apart in personality and mostly estranged, although the funeral has brought them back into each others' orbit. Both are struggling to form meaningful partnerships. Ivan begins a relationship with a woman 14 years older than him whose alcoholic ex-husband lingers in the shadows, while Peter is very obviously still in love with his former girlfriend Sylvia (one of my favourite characters in the whole book) but sharing a bed with a student, Naomi, who is the same age as his brother.
As with all of Rooney's books, this is a character-driven novel and these two are fantastically well-drawn, as are those on the periphery of the two men's lives. Dialogue is her particularly strength and conversations are like well-orchestrated dances, leaping and pirouetting across the page.
There are moments of real poignancy and the two men's hurt and grief, close to the surface, is often painful to read. This isn't a gloomy book though. There's love, plenty of sex, and humour too. Rooney is brilliant at capturing those slightly ridiculous moments, such as when Peter's two girlfriends Sylvia and Noami meet ('Help,' Naomi jokes. 'My girlfriends have unionised').
While I loved both Conversations With Friends and Normal People, this feels like a more mature novel - and in my opinion, her best yet. There's more introspection here, more vulnerability from the characters, and this allows a greater connection.
Rooney’s writing can be Marmite, but if you love introspective, meandering novels that weave in thoughts on everything from the Dublin housing crisis to modern masculinity, Intermezzo - tender and true - is for you.
The extraordinary rise of Sally Rooney
While still only 33, Sally Rooney has a literary back catalogue impressive for someone twice her age. She completed her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, while studying for her master's degree in American literature at Trinity College Dublin. The book was subject of a seven-way auction and was published in 2017 by Faber & Faber. Listed for multiple awards, it won the 2017 Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award.
Rooney followed it up with Normal People which went on to sell more than 1m copies in the UK alone. The book was longlisted for the Booker Prize and was named Waterstones Book of the Year and won the Costa Book Award. The 2020 12-part BBC series starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, was a huge hit, with 62.7m viewers. An adaptation of Conversations With Friends, with Joe Alwyn, Alison Oliver, Jemima Kirke and Sasha Lane in the lead roles, was similarly successful.
Her third novel, published in 2021, Beautiful World, Where Are You, didn't have quite the same critical success but was a hit with readers. Unlike its predecessors, the book won't make it to the screen. Rooney said in a recent interview that she wouldn't be accepting any offers to option the book. 'I felt like it was just time to take a break from that and let the book be its own thing for a while,' she said.
Whether she feels the same about Intermezzo, we don't yet know but as a fan of her work I will keep my fingers crossed.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is published on 24 September
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