Irish author Sally Rooney, hailed as “the voice of a generation” after the global success of “Normal People,” continues to examine modern love in her fourth novel, “Intermezzo,” which comes out Tuesday, as she attempts to come to terms with fame.
His fans will find the elements that made him successful: a fine observation of social relations, strikingly realistic dialogues in Dublin apartments, erotic scenes and existential conversations on patriarchy and capitalism.
After creating striking female characters, the 33-year-old novelist this time tells the story of the coming together of two estranged brothers, Peter and Ivan, in the weeks following their father’s death, and the romantic relationships they form during the delicate period of mourning.
Six years after the publication of her novel “Conversations with Friends” (2017), written in three months at the end of her studies and which revealed her at only 26 years old, her characters, like her, have grown up.
They have become thirty-somethings, confronted with questions about motherhood and climate anxiety. His style, direct and realistic, also evolves, with dialogues that intertwine with the characters’ interior monologue.
– “To go unnoticed” –
This discreet Irishwoman, who grew up in the small town of Castlebar (north-west), was not prepared for the success of her second novel “Normal People” (2018), adapted into a series by the BBC in 2020, which made her popularity explode.
The novelist has managed to capture something of the times and the way in which “millennials” – born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s – experience their friendly, family and romantic relationships.
Covered in praise by Barack Obama and Taylor Swift, she joined Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022. She has been presented as “the voice of a generation” or the “Salinger of the Snapchat generation” – a network she had never heard of.
The success of “Normal People”? “It was too much, I never want to be the centre of attention like that again,” she told the Guardian, adding that “the experience of being a young woman in the public eye is not always easy or enjoyable.”
The thirty-year-old is still struggling with her fame, accompanied by her millions of admirers but also detractors, who consider this literary phenomenon “overrated”.
With a diaphanous face and brown bangs, she gives few interviews, says she is uncomfortable in public and clumsy when she has to pose for photos.
“I feel a lot of anxiety about my private life (…) I am a very discreet person, I like to go unnoticed,” she told the Irish Times newspaper, saying she sometimes regrets not having taken a pen name like Elena Ferrante.
– “Marxist” –
Five literary prizes and millions of copies sold later, Sally Rooney hopes to free herself from the label of successful “young writer.”
After ten years in Dublin and then a stint in New York, she lives with her husband, a mathematics professor, in the peaceful Irish countryside, near where she grew up.
Described as both “brilliant” and aloof, Sally Rooney is nevertheless connected to current events and her political commitment, which she describes as “Marxist”, infuses her novels.
In 2021, she refused to allow her third book, “Where are you, admirable world?” (2022), to be translated into Hebrew by an Israeli publishing house that she considered too close to power, provoking strong reactions within the Jewish community.
Three years later, she says she does not want to “remain silent in the face of genocide”: “The horrors that are happening in Gaza seem to me to be a turning point in history. How do we allow this to happen?” she asks the Irish Times.
Although she has always avoided writing autobiographical works, many have seen her alter ego in the character of Alice, the young novelist in her third novel who struggles to accept her fame and takes refuge in a small coastal town in Ireland.
“I feel like I’ve been through a lot, very quickly (…) and this book showcases some of those challenges,” she told Vogue at the time.
