Intermezzo (novel)
 First edition cover | |
| Author | Sally Rooney |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Éanna Hardwicke |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Faber & Faber |
Publication date | 24 September 2024 |
| Publication place | London |
| Media type | Print (hardback), ebook, audiobook |
| Pages | 448 pp. |
| ISBN | 978-0-571-36546-3 (First edition hardback) |
Intermezzo is the fourth novel by Irish author Sally Rooney,[1] published by Faber & Faber on 24 September 2024.[2][3] The novel is about two brothers and their lovers and explores themes related to grief and age-gap relationships.[4]
Publication
Faber & Faber published Intermezzo on 24 September 2024. Faber partnered with more than 40 bookshops in what it called its "biggest trade campaign ever".[5]
Reception
Intermezzo was favorably received by critics. Per Book Marks, a website that aggregates critical reviews for literature from mainstream critics, the book received an overall "Positive" consensus rating based on 35 independent third-party assessments, including 16 "rave", 8 "positive", 8 "mixed", and 3 "pan" reviews.[6]
In The Guardian, Alexandra Harris called Intermezzo an "accomplished continuation of the writing that made Rooney a global phenomenon. It's also more philosophically ambitious, stylistically varied, disturbing at times and altogether stranger". Harris reserved special praise for the novel's sequences of thought, which she wrote "build to cumulonimbus heights, growing behind the inadequate or misfiring conversations, or rising freely, with a sort of grandeur, from the nonverbal core of sexual pleasure".[4]
In her review for Jacobin, Marianela D'Aprile wrote that in Intermezzo, Rooney relies on a familiar series of tropes found in her other novels: "Intermezzo's characters feel familiar because we've seen them before; they are the archetypes to which Rooney has made men and women reducible". D'Aprile added that the novel's ending reinforces traditional gender roles, "that men exist at the mercy of the world—and that women exist at the mercy of men".[7]
References
- ^ "What Sally Rooney is saying about her upcoming book 'Intermezzo'". ABC News.
- ^ Allardice, Lisa (14 September 2024). "Sally Rooney: 'Falling in love when I was very young transformed my life'". The Guardian.
- ^ "Sally Rooney is her own harshest critic – but that could be a good thing". The Independent. 14 September 2024.
- ^ a b Harris, Alexandra (19 September 2024). "Intermezzo by Sally Rooney review – surprise moves in love, loss and chess". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 22 September 2024.
- ^ Spanoudi, Melina (27 August 2024). "Faber launches 'biggest trade campaign ever' to mark the publication of Sally Rooney's Intermezzo". The Bookseller. Archived from the original on 27 August 2024. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
- ^ "Book Marks reviews of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney". Book Marks. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
- ^ D'Aprile, Marianela (24 September 2024). "Sally Rooney's Intermezzo Feels Very Familiar". Jacobin. Retrieved 24 September 2024.