Bestselling Books
Intermezzo: A Novel
Intermezzo is Sally Rooney's most structurally ambitious novel — a dual narrative that alternates between Peter, a Dublin lawyer in his thirties holding together a fractured personal life, and Ivan, his younger brother, a professional chess player adjusting to adult relationships for the first time. Both are processing the recent death of their father. Rooney's interior-voice style is more varied here than in Normal People or Beautiful World: Peter's chapters use a stream-of-consciousness syntax that mirrors his emotional disorientation; Ivan's chapters are more measured and outward-facing. The chess world is rendered accurately and used as more than metaphor — Ivan's game gives the novel its rhythm of strategy, patience, and sudden reversal. The book became an immediate New York Times bestseller on publication and sustained strong readership driven by both literary review coverage and reader word-of-mouth. At 448 pages it is longer and denser than Rooney's earlier work, and the payoff accumulates gradually rather than arriving in a single climax. Readers who responded to Normal People or Conversations with Friends will find recognizable preoccupations — class, desire, the limits of language in intimate relationships — but with more formal complexity and a wider emotional range.
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What we like
- + Sally Rooney's most structurally ambitious novel — dual narrative with distinct voice registers for each brother
- + Chess world rendered accurately and integrated into the story's rhythm rather than used as surface metaphor
- + Immediate New York Times bestseller with sustained readership across literary and general audiences
- + Wider emotional range and more formal complexity than Normal People or Conversations with Friends
Watch out for
- - Denser and slower to accumulate than Rooney's earlier work — not a fast read
- - Stream-of-consciousness chapters for Peter require more active attention than the novel's outward-facing sections
Our verdict
Best literary fiction of 2024 for readers who engaged with Normal People. Rooney's most formally ambitious novel — richer and more demanding than her earlier work, with a payoff that matches the investment.