Claire Lowdon

A wish-fulfilment romance: Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney, reviewed

Rooney’s fourth novel is another case of compare and contrast, with various pairings of anxious characters struggling through their twenties and thirties in picturesque Dublin

Marketed as a serious literary novelist – Rooney, photographed at Faber’s office in London. [Kalpesh Lathigra] 
issue 28 September 2024

An earworm from the time of Covid: the sound of Connell and Marianne having breathless sex, bedsprings squeaking. I’m talking not about 2020’s hit TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestselling second novel, Normal People but about the relentless piss-take featured on BBC Radio 4’s Dead Ringers. After every few skits the show would cut to an audio clip of the two undergraduates going hard at it.

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