Intermezzo is the fourth novel by Irish author Sally Rooney,[1] published by Faber and 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]

Intermezzo
AuthorSally Rooney
LanguageEnglish
PublisherFaber and Faber
Publication date
24 September 2024

Publication

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Intermezzo was published by Faber and Faber on 24 September 2024. Faber has partnered with more than 40 bookshops in what it has called its "biggest trade campaign ever".[5]

Reception

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In her review for The Guardian, Alexandra Harris evaluated Intermezzo as 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 of the book for the magazine Jacobin, Marianela D'Aprile writes that for Intermezzo, Rooney relies on a familiar series of tropes found in her other novels, saying "Intermezzo's characters feel familiar because we've seen them before; they are the archetypes to which Rooney has made men and women reducible", and 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".[6]

References

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  1. ^ "What Sally Rooney is saying about her upcoming book 'Intermezzo'". ABC News.
  2. ^ Allardice, Lisa (14 September 2024). "Sally Rooney: 'Falling in love when I was very young transformed my life'". The Guardian.
  3. ^ "Sally Rooney is her own harshest critic – but that could be a good thing". The Independent. 14 September 2024.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ D'Aprile, Marianela (24 September 2024). "Sally Rooney's Intermezzo Feels Very Familiar". Jacobin. Retrieved 24 September 2024.