Sally Rooney’s ‘Intermezzo’: Love, loss and lingering regret

AT 33, Sally Rooney has the kind of literary career most young writers only dream of. Her first two novels Conversations with Friends (2017) and Normal People (2018) were critical and commercial successes, leading to TV adaptations that solidified her reputation as a voice of a generation. 

Her latest novel, Intermezzo (2024), was recently released to a flurry of social media excitement, complete with exclusive merchandise and midnight release parties worldwide. The title debuted on best-seller lists around the world, including Kinokuniya Singapore’s fiction list, and has stayed there since.

For the first time in her career, Rooney tells a story primarily from male perspectives, focusing on two Dublin-based brothers: Peter, 32, a charming but troubled human rights lawyer, and Ivan, 22, a shy chess prodigy whose introverted nature complicates his relationships.