My Goodreads and Amazon review of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney ((Rated 5) – The Roz Chast of Prose. Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo is the first book by this acclaimed author that I’ve read. Suspicious of hype, I heretofore resisted, but now conclude the praise is justified. “Rooney reading” is slow going. I mean this literally but not at all negatively. Her writing is intense, characterized by what my fellow fiction writers and I call “interiority.” (See my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page.) Rooney readers don’t zip through pages of dialogue or plot points. Rather, from the perspectives of the novel’s three neurotic protagonists, she takes us inside their heads to eavesdrop on their jumbled, obsessive, occasionally self-content, but more often self-doubting, ruminations. Rooney is the Roz Chast of prose. We recognize ourselves in her characters. We too have felt insecure, fearful of judgment, wronged by others, and guilty about how we’ve wronged them. Delving into the antagonistic relationship between two brothers grieving their father’s death, and the murky entanglements of their respective romantic affairs, Rooney sets our neurons atingle. Intermezzo is a quiet book about the cacophony inside our heads as we strive to appear capable to the outside world. That is, until an intermezzo — a threatening move unexpectedly played in the middle of a chess game — disrupts our defenses. The novel’s endgame isn’t obvious, but it’s very satisfying.
Unrelenting and absorbing internal monologues
Why writers read: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C. S. Lewis
