Fans of Normal People and Conversations With Friends are pleased to hear that Sally Rooney will release a new novel this fall, with publishers Farrar, Straus, and Giroux announcing the release today. Titled Intermezzo, the novel will explore themes surrounding grief and complicated relationships. 

The novel follows Peter, a successful lawyer from Dublin who is the polar opposite of his younger brother, Ivan, a nerdy competitive chess player. In the wake of their father’s passing, the brothers are faced with having to navigate their lives, which are both incredibly complicated in their own right. 

Rooney's preceding novels have been smash hits, with Conversations With Friends and Normal People being adapted into two hit Hulu mini-series and Beautiful World, Where Are You selling over 40,000 copies within the first week of its release in the UK. With the impressive critical acclaim Rooney has received with her first three books, fans will await in anticipation over how Rooney decides to tell the story of Peter and Ivan. Perhaps Intermezzo will receive a TV or film adaptation of its own. 

Rooney's books are often character-driven novels that explore themes like vulnerability, complicated love, and miscommunication. Her novels also largely revolve around female protagonists. This will presumably be the first novel of Rooney's without a leading lady. While Rooney's fans cherish characters like Marianne as seen and read in Normal People and Frances in Conversations With Friends, it will be interesting to see what Rooney does with the leading men of Intermezzo. 

For now, Rooney's fans must manage with the novel's first lines, which FSG tweeted today:

"Didn't seem fair on the young lad. That suit at the funeral. With the braces on his teeth, the supreme discomfort of the adolescent." 

Intermezzo's U.S. release date is set for September 24, 2024.