Sally Rooney Reads from Intermezzo in Dublin

Sally Rooney Reads from Intermezzo in Dublin

This article relates to Intermezzo

On Saturday, September 21, 2024, more than 500 people gathered at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, located a few meters from St. Stephen's Green, a setting in Sally Rooney's new novel Intermezzo. The Irish author, one of the most influential figures on the contemporary literary scene, greeted the audience with a warm smile and a hand over her heart in a gesture of gratitude to those attending the presentation of her latest novel.

Sally Rooney has become a global phenomenon. She could be defined as a literary Taylor Swift: the publication of her books has caused bookstores to open early to accommodate long lines of people eager to get a copy; limited and autographed editions of her works sell for hundreds; her fans, mainly young women, accumulate her merchandise. TIME, the same magazine that named Swift Person of the Year in 2023, included Rooney in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022. In the same issue, Lena Dunham described Rooney as "a writer who speaks such basic truths." That is perhaps the key to her success in popular culture: the ability to connect through intimate, honest, and imperfect stories.

At just 26, Rooney published her first novel, Conversations with Friends (2017), but it was her second work, Normal People (2018), and the resounding success of its television adaptation, that established her as the voice of her generation. As journalist Emma Loffhagen notes in an article for the Evening Standard, "her incisive, deeply relatable portrayals of millennial life in her three novels, have accrued her a fiercely dedicated fanbase of young, often female, readers, who see their lives refracted in her work."

Her books have been translated into 47 languages—although the last two are not available in Hebrew. In 2021, Rooney refused to have her third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, translated into this language as a show of support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a campaign that seeks to "end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law."

Politics, both in her work and in her personal life, are central to Rooney. In her presentation at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, she spent the first few minutes speaking about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, urging attendees to continue protesting and speaking out against the genocide that has taken the lives of over 40,000 Palestinians. After this initial speech, she proceeded to read the first pages of her new novel.

She was then joined in conversation by Irish writer and journalist Fintan O'Toole, who began his discussion by defining Rooney as an "intimacy coordinator" of literature. They touched on several topics: Rooney explained how the idea for her new novel came about, they reflected on the relationship between language and reality, on the format of the novel, the capitalist system in which it is inscribed, and how she seeks to respond to its challenges: "The novel still has a bit of magic to give," said Rooney.

Towards the end of the talk, the author delved into the central theme of her work: relationships in all their forms, whether friendship, familial, sexual, or romantic. In Jane Austen's novels, desire and other feelings are often left unspoken yet still push the narrative; Rooney uncovers the aspects of modern relationships that remain similarly unsaid. Her characters often exist outside societal norms and expectations, and many are labeled as "unlikeable" by readers. However, Rooney stated that she loves all of them, revealing that their unpleasant traits are also aspects of her own personality, a candid admission that drew laughter from the audience.

In fact, despite the seriousness of her thoughts and the topics she addresses, and the fact that no photos were allowed at the event, Rooney's closeness with her readers was undeniable. She came across as warm, fun, and approachable, breaking with the distant image she sometimes projects. After the talk, Rooney stayed to sign books for all the attendees in a process that quickly became somewhat chaotic, with people of all ages (albeit mostly young women), from Ireland and all over the world, jumping the line and piling up in search of a signature—a scene that only reaffirms the global phenomenon that Sally Rooney has become.

Sally Rooney, ©Kalpesh Lathigra, courtesy of Macmillan

Filed under Books and Authors

This article relates to Intermezzo. It first ran in the October 2, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.