The great Sally Rooney divide: how she became the most talked about author of a generation

In April 2017, the yearly Oxford Literary Festival hosted a sheet treatment for first-time authors. One of the panelists was Paula Cocozza, a writer astatine the Guardian, the other, a little-known 26-year-old writer from Dublin by the sanction of Sally Rooney. The pursuing month, Rooney’s archetypal novel, Conversations with Friends, was acceptable to beryllium released, having been sold successful a competitory seven-way auction the erstwhile year. But contempt the conflict to summation the rights to her debut, this paper’s civilization editor, who interviewed the brace astatine the event, recalls that only astir 10 radical showed up. Half of whom were publishers. 

It is an acquisition galore budding authors volition subordinate to — and yet now, it is hard to judge that determination was ever a clip that Rooney was not a household name. Fast guardant 7 years, and successful the run-up to this month’s merchandise of her highly-anticipated 4th caller Intermezzo, Rooney has go ubiquitous successful the literate world. Her incisive, profoundly relatable portrayals of millennial beingness successful her 3 novels, person accrued her a fiercely dedicated fanbase of young, often female, readers, who spot their lives refracted successful her work.

Her sanction has go a metonym for a definite taste palate, provoking passionateness oregon ire, adjacent for those who person ne'er opened 1 of her books. For some, she is simply a once-in-a-generation talent, a millennial oracle whose enactment is the apotheosis of modern art. For others, her prose is overrated and hollow. She has been variously labelled the “Salinger for the Snapchat generation” and the writer of “sanctimony literature”, some genius and charlatan.  

Intermezzo, released this month, has already generated insatiable buzz. Unlike her erstwhile novels, the publication mostly focuses connected the interior lives of men – Peter, a palmy Dublin lawyer, and his younger member Ivan, a chess 22-year-old prodigy — suffering successful the aftermath of their father’s death. The brace are foils of 1 different — Peter, creaseless and unassailable; Ivan, awkward and lonely; but their lives go progressively intertwined.  

Sam, 39, was moving arsenic a bookseller the archetypal clip helium heard the sanction Sally Rooney. It was successful 2017, conscionable earlier the merchandise of Conversations With Friends, and helium had begun to perceive whispers that the publication could beryllium thing special. 

“I was precise overmuch utilized to proceeding each 2nd debut caller called The Next Big Thing, A New Generational Talent etcetera,” helium says. “But the buzz astir that publication was unusually strong.” 

While Conversations With Friends was mostly received good (lukewarm reception astatine literate events aside), it was 2 years later, with the merchandise of Normal People, that Sam, and overmuch of the remainder of the world, became  fully-fledged Rooney obsessives. 

“There was this contiguous industry-wide chatter of 'oh my god, person you work this yet?',” Sam says. “I got my hands connected a copy, and past it made sense, due to the fact that it felt similar a amended publication successful each way. It was conscionable truthful sharp, and truthful bully astatine opening up the characters' minds to the reader, successful this precise crisp, deceptively elemental prose.”

For Sam, this month’s merchandise of Intermezzo has seen his infatuation scope fever pitch. “I created and posted an progressively anserine and unhinged meme connected X/Twitter mundane tagging steadfast Faber & Faber successful an effort to get sent a proof,” helium says. Three months later, Sam yet received a parcel successful the post with the publication enclosed, reading: “To Sam, from Faber & Faber.” 

Sam is acold from alone. Rooney’s publication releases person go planetary literate events — erstwhile she came to talk astatine autarkic New York publication store Books Are Magic successful 2019, involvement was truthful precocious that the store moved the lawsuit to a adjacent religion to accommodate the crowds. Two years later, the merchandise of her 3rd novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You?, saw publication shops crossed the UK unfastened early, attracting queues of tote-bag bearing fans vying to prime up a hardback copy. At the time, The Wall Street Journal reported that beforehand copies of Beautiful World were selling connected eBay for $200. This month, 20 autarkic bookshops person already confirmed they volition beryllium opening aboriginal again, successful anticipation of the hype for Intermezzo. 

So what is it astir Rooney’s penning which has provoked specified cult-like fever — and besides led to her being measo divisive? 

 “I deliberation she's wonderful, and successful nary tiny portion due to the fact that she's 1 of the lone modern authors who tin animate this benignant of hype, and associated treatment of their creation and its impact,” says Sam. 

“It's the operation of the clarity of the writing, the benignant of relationships, identities and issues she explores, with the consciousness of communal buzz that's built and built implicit the people of her career,” Sam says of the look for Rooney’s success. “There person been truthful galore authors launched since her nether the banner of 'the caller Sally Rooney', which of people is however publishing works, trying to marque lightning onslaught the aforesaid spot twice.”

For 28-year-old Lara, it is the relatability of Rooney’s characters which is the existent draw. “Everyone tin subordinate to that truly angsty teenage signifier wherever you’re not assured capable to accidental however you feel, truthful you’re trapped successful your thoughts and guessing however different idiosyncratic is feeling,” she says. 

“Connell and Marianne [in Normal People] are conscionable the worst communicators and it’s infuriating, but they’re besides astatine an property and signifier wherever they wouldn’t truly beryllium bully astatine that, and she truly shows that.” 

Much of the communicative of the large Rooney divide, then, is possibly a lawsuit of falling unfortunate to one’s ain success. Particularly arsenic aft the triumph of the pandemic-aired BBC Three adaption of Normal People — starring Mescal and Edgar-Jones arsenic Connell and Marianne — successful April 2020, Rooney’s sanction went stratospheric and her omnipresence was solidified. In 2022, Time named her 1 of the 100 astir influential radical successful the world. 

“I deliberation she gets a batch of unfair flack due to the fact that of however she was initially presented [by literate critics]” says Sam. “‘The Salinger of the Snapchat generation' I retrieve was the punctuation bandied astir erstwhile Conversations [With Friends] came out.

“There was a fashionable lit crit portion astir Normal People that described it arsenic fundamentally YA [young big literature], and I deliberation that's astir apt fair, but it's utilized arsenic a instrumentality to bushed her with alternatively of an acknowledgement that she's been precise palmy successful penning clear, clever fabrication that holds up a reflector to the lives of young people. 

Lara agrees. “I deliberation radical mightiness accidental she’s overrated conscionable due to the fact that she didn’t write, War and Peace,” she says. “People sometimes deliberation you request to beryllium penning large Shakespearean oregon classical lit to beryllium considered an astonishing author, but I disagree. I don’t deliberation the classics are precise readable, and modern modern fabrication is mode much engaging. I deliberation besides portion of it is due to the fact that she writes romance stories, which don’t get taken earnestly arsenic a large enactment of art.”

This, Lara thinks, is besides tied to the information that Rooney is simply a palmy woman. “I don’t deliberation a antheral would get the aforesaid disapproval for penning romance,” she says. “And his enactment wouldn’t beryllium called overrated if he’d written a truly tight, painful, beauteous emotion communicative [such arsenic Normal People]. Did Sebastian Faulks get that disapproval for Birdsong? To maine that was similar the raunchiest, sexiest happening I’ve ever read.” 

Rooney is simply a self-described Marxist, and her authorities person agelong been a diagnostic of her novels (and connected her Twitter account, earlier she near the site). In 2021,  she declined an connection from an Israeli steadfast to construe Beautiful World, Where Are You? into Hebrew, citing her enactment for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

But Rooney has besides attracted flack for what immoderate comprehend arsenic the gestural authorities of her novels — The New Yorker erstwhile called her dialog “casual intelligence hooliganism”. “Rooney’s handling of governmental questions tin consciousness tacked on, arsenic if the characters’ musings astir capitalism oregon people are simply fashionable accessories alternatively than integral to their being,” wrote The Cut’s Molly Fischer successful 2021. 

For 29-year-old lawyer Giulia, this is her main gripe with Rooney. “I deliberation the full communicative astir her novels being a critique of capitalism doesn’t clasp up,” she says. “Her characters are rather narcissistic and the information that they are deemed [by readers] relatable to maine suggests that she’s wanting to excuse apathy.” 

For Giulia, determination is an asymmetry betwixt Rooney’s Marxist credentials and the authorities of her characters. 

“The characters grounds zero earnestness which doesn’t shriek socialism to me,” she says. “And honestly her prose is truly not innovative. [It’s] sparse and has been done before.” 

It is possibly this tendency to entree Rooney — and specifically her beliefs – done her lit which contributes to the intrigue surrounding her. Rooney the idiosyncratic is intensely backstage and thing of an enigma — famously she is not connected societal media, and has made nary concealed of her discomfort with her celebrity. “I mean radical who, aft a small sensation of fame, privation much and much of it — are, and I honestly judge this, profoundly psychologically ill”, writes Alice, a young Irish writer wide seen arsenic a stand-in for Rooney, successful Beautiful World, Where Are You?

But should novels needfully beryllium a conveyance done which to refract one’s authorities anyway? 

“I’ve ne'er work her enactment and thought she was performing an opinion, but I haven’t been engaging with her enactment arsenic a governmental text,” Lara says. “I’m overmuch much funny successful communicative and characters and not [in] Sally Rooney herself.”

Sam agrees. “I perfectly admit the criticisms that that her benignant is precise overmuch anchored successful definite tropes and types – white, thin, educated successful a precise peculiar way, reflecting her ain background,” Sam says. “But she's besides been precise bully astatine utilizing that acceptable of archetypes to research antithetic themes of peculiar relevance to her readership successful each publication – intersexual identity, narration dynamics, economical precarity.”

“I’m not going to beryllium annoyed if much radical work her novels, though” Giulia says. “There are worse things radical tin get truly enthusiastic about!”

Ultimately, Rooney is simply a novelist who gets radical speechmaking — thing that adjacent her critics cannot reproach.

Intermezzo, published by Faber & Faber is retired September 24