EYNTK About Sally Rooney’s Upcoming Novel, Intermezzo

Irish bestselling author of Normal People, Conversations with Friends and Beautiful World Where Are You, Sally Rooney is set to release her fourth novel this month and we could not be more excited!

Here is everything we know about the upcoming release.

In classic Rooney style, Intermezzo is set in Dublin. According to the synopsis, the story follows two brothers Peter and Ivan Koubek who could not be more different from each other.

The siblings have recently lost their father and amongst this, they try to juggle their romantic and familial relationships. Similar to Rooney’s other books it is expected to be exceedingly character-driven.

This time however, she deals with a new sibling dynamic, two people who do not necessarily choose to be in each other’s lives but have to deal with the fact that they are.

Rooney has described her fascination with relationships before. At the time of Conversations with Friends’ release, she said: “At times I think of human relationships as something soft like sand or water, and by pouring them into particular vessels we give them shape.”

And it’s safe to say we’re going to get a whole lot more of this in Intermezzo.

Die-hard Rooney fans will appreciate the familiarity of relationships taking centre stage in the book. In this story, personal relationships are set above everything else in the character’s everyday lives.

The book will explore several unconventional romantic relationships, similar to Conversations with Friends. However, the book also covers themes of grief and mental health which Rooney has proven to always treat so delicately in her past work.

Ahead of the publication, the author will be joined by Irish journalist and author Fintan O’Toole in Dublin for an in-depth conversation and a short reading.

Intermezzo is published by Faber Books and will hit the shelves on September 24. The audiobook will be released on the same date and will be narrated by actor Éanna Hardwicke.

If you just can’t wait to get your hands on the book, pre-order is currently available and a snippet of the first few pages of the audiobook have been released on Faber Books’ Instagram.

Get those pre-orders in, girls.

Words by Ava Grace 

• Sally Rooney