A New Sally Rooney Book Is Coming! What the Best-Selling Author Has to Say About Her 6th Novel

Calling all book lovers! Best-selling Irish author Sally Rooney — who has penned five books — is set to release a new title  in September. But what is the book her new book going to be about, where did the idea for it come from and will it have Rooney’s honest portrayal of the human experience? All of that information about the new Sally Rooney book and more are below!

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All about the new Sally Rooney book

Sally Rooney’s new book, Intermezzo , is set to hit shelves on September 24, 2024, and will follow brothers Peter and Ivan Koubek. Peter is a lawyer in Dublin who struggles to manage his personal and professional life after his father’s death. His brother Ivan is a loner who prefers chess pieces to people — that is until he meets an older woman named Margaret. Told in both brothers’ perspectives, this novel is set to be a groundbreaking tale about family, love and grief.

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Where did the idea for ‘Intermezzo’ come from?

In a recent interview in The New Yorker , Rooney opened up about how her short story Opening Theory serves as a sort of introduction to Intermezzo.

“Margaret and Ivan [The main characters in the short story] occurred to me together, as a pair. But, shortly after I started writing about them, the whole project got stuck. I didn’t know where to go next. Several months later, I suddenly realized that Ivan had a brother — and, in that moment of realization, I felt I could see the brother’s entire personality and these other important relationships in his life,” Rooney explained.

“That’s when the novel as such really got under way. It became a book that was very much about the sibling dynamic, as well as the various love affairs .”

Rooney ended the explanation by saying, “I don’t think I knew from the outset how anything would unfold — how any of the love stories would end, or how the relationship between the brothers would develop. But I really enjoyed being immersed in the world of the book . I was constantly thinking of ideas for new scenes and scenarios, many of which never ended up in the novel at all. It was by and large a very happy few years of work for me — with some inevitable periods of despair and crisis, of course, but really very few.”

Another reason that Rooney wanted to write the book? The dynamic between the brothers.

“I can only say that I must have been interested in writing about brotherhood, since I seem to have spent several years doing so, but I can’t explain why. Peter and Ivan just came into my head that way,” the writer explained. “ The more time I spent with them both, the more sympathy I felt for each of them , in their own ways of narrating and rationalizing their family dynamic.”

You can read Rooney’s short story here !

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Sally Rooney’s other books

Since Intermezzo isn’t set to come out until September, readers do have some time to read Rooney’s other books. They are entitled Normal People, Conversations with Friends , Mr Salary, Two Stories and Beautiful World , Where Are You .

They are available wherever books are sold and have Rooney’s signature Irish touch.

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