People misunderstand one another in a Sally Rooney novel. Two characters at a party, for example, try to discuss "a film they had both seen, but it transpired that they were thinking of two different films, which put a halt to the discussion." People misinterpret motives, avoid painful (but important) topics of conversation, misread the tone of a text message or email. Friendships and relationships founder over these misunderstandings; bad life choices abound.
Since Rooney burst onto the literary scene in 2017, the Irish novelist, now 28, has attracted passionate fans who feel as if they personally know her characters _ 20-somethings with high ideals (Marxism, for example), ironic banter and almost crippling self-consciousness. Sarah Jessica Parker has raved about her writing on Instagram; critics pile on superlatives. Rooney has even been billed the "first great millennial novelist."
Rooney's debut, "Conversations With Friends" (Hogarth; 325 pages, $17 paper), featured an unconventional love quadrangle. Frances and Bobbi are 21-year-old students at Trinity College in Dublin, former lovers and now friends who perform spoken-word poetry together. At the opening of the novel, they have been invited to the showplace home of an older couple, Melissa and Nick, for a drink. Melissa is a "slightly famous" writer interested in profiling the young poets; her husband, Nick, is a handsome, reserved actor. Drinks are followed by dinner a few days later, and then Melissa's drunken birthday party, at which Frances winds up kissing Nick in a utility room _ bad idea, right?
