The first great millennial novelist (or something like that)
On Sally Rooney's psychological portraiture
In 2015, The Guardian’s Justine Jordan wrote about a new Irish literary boom dominated by women writers attuned to the more dynamic and radical. The feature named the likes of Kevin Barry (City of Bohane), Eimear McBride (A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing) and Sara Baume (Spill Simmer Falter Wither) among others as leaders of the new wave-maker generation.
Two years later, at 26, Sally Rooney of Castlebar, now considered “the first great millennial novelist,” made her own debut with Conversations With Friends. The novel follows two Irish college-aged schoolmates, both of whom get wrapped up in what you might call one of the most cliché plots of women’s fiction—adultery. But nothing about the book really reads as cliché.
I picked Conversations up on a friend’s recommendation shortly after its release and devoured it in a sitting or two. At the time, I remember thinking, this is the kind of contemporary work that reads like a guilty pleasure. Its narrative plot isn’t monumental, but the dessert is in the intimacy, the often ironic and silly and wounded intimacy.
What makes Rooney’s writing so addictive and digestible and desirable for me is how intelligently she writes about said intimacy. Her debut novel (and subsequent bestseller) both seem to have come equipped with a telepathy starter kit for readers, one that makes you question the authenticity of each and every exchange, the emotive reactions of one’s body language through paper. I felt like a P.I. trying to peel back layers of Frances’s self-delusion and idealism. I understood the lies Bobbi fed herself. There’s also a sense of movement in each relationship, a quick and somewhat unhealthy pace that begs for a slow-down. It might not surprise anyone that Rooney wrote the bulk of Conversations in three months.
In a 2019 profile, The New Yorker’s Alexandra Schwartz wrote of Rooney’s natural power as a psychological portraitist; “She is acute and sophisticated about the workings of innocence.”
Rooney introduces you to a character with x amount of life experience and then delicately layers that mind and body with new experiences using soft brush strokes each time. The new paint dries slowly, but seeps into the paper, absorbed by the character we met on page one. Everything feels purposeful. Everything feels authentic. You watch your characters grow, change, revert. The fluidity is gorgeous—and exactly what I’ve been trying to master in my own fiction work.
Though Rooney’s novels deftly tackle social class standings and financial imbalances, I read both Conversations and Rooney’s next bestseller Normal People (fantastic TV adaptation, btw) with little to no understanding of modern Irish politics, the country’s financial collapse, the resistance to capitalism budding among the young. Everything I knew about Ireland I’d loosely learned in high school from James Joyce or Oscar Wilde or Sam Beckett and, um, Yeats. (Sorry, Sally.)
It was only after indulging in both Rooney novels (I still consider these indulgences) that I began reading up on the current mood of Ireland. That’s what led me to Emma Donoghue’s Room, Lyra McKee Lost, Found, Remembered and eventually, to Netflix’s Derry Girls. I’m craving more.
Another starting point: 8 Irish writers you need to know now
—fiza
A big hug to paying subscribers Sam Kruger, Arielle Lewitt and Salima Makhani.
The first great millennial novelist (or something like that)
lo o o ooove sally rooney.