If you think Sally Rooney’s upcoming book’s focus on brotherhood is not for you, you might want to read Rooney’s extract which zeroes in on “Intermezzo”’s protagonist’s short and sweet first interaction with a love interest
It’s been almost three years since Sally Rooney last came out with a book. And unless you’re Ayo Edebiri who was seen with a copy of the upcoming book “Intermezzo” on Instagram, you will have to wait until September this year to get your hands on Rooney’s new fiction. Or, you can read an “extract” of it in the New Yorker right now.
The short fiction entitled “Opening Theory” is not exactly an excerpt of “Intermezzo” but rather an extract. The story was drawn from an early chapter of the upcoming novel. While the former centers on the protagonist chess prodigy Ivan Koubek’s awkward yet electric interactions with Margaret, an older woman working at the venue where he’s playing one weekend for an exhibition match, “Intermezzo” meanwhile follows the story of Ivan and his older brother Peter after the loss of their father.
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Rooney has made a name for herself with her stories that explore relationships between complicated, seemingly common characters—often in love and friendship. Her first book “Normal People” was adapted into a BBC TV show starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
In an interview about the short fiction, also in the New Yorker, the Irish author explained how “Intermezzo” evolved from a novel about Ivan and Margaret to one about sibling dynamics. “Margaret and Ivan 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,” she said.
So the novel becomes intertwined between the brothers and their love affairs.
In the short fiction, the reader can glimpse the juvenile desires of Ivan and how they interplay with Margaret’s adult tendencies; a contrast mirrored in the book between the brothers as Peter is 10 years older than the 22-year-old chess player.
Readers of Sally Rooney’s in-depth character sketches and excavations of their inner thoughts will recognize in “Opening Theory” a familiar prose, one centered on acting upon internalized yearning that, if anything, proves just how “human” and fallible these “normal” people can be.
You can read “Opening Theory”—and even listen to an hour-long recording of the story—ahead of “Intermezzo”’s release on Sept. 24.
