Sally Rooney says success of Normal People felt like ‘too much’

Irish author says she felt overwhelmed by the frenzy sparked by her book and the BBC’s 2020 adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones

Sally Rooney has spoken of her discomfort over the level of attention she received for her second novel, Normal People.

The Irish author is preparing for the release of her latest work, Intermezzo, which follows two brothers, Ivan and Peter, living in Dublin while coming to terms with the death of their father.

Published in 2018, Normal People was a critically acclaimed bestseller. It received an additional boost in popularity following the release of the BBC’s 2020 adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones.

Speaking to The Guardian, Rooney said she was unprepared for the book’s success and balked at the idea of experiencing that kind of interest again.

“It felt to me like everyone in Britain and Ireland was talking about this television show, and it all kind of came from my head,” she said.

“[The attention] still felt like too much,” she continued. “I don’t want to be the centre of attention like that ever again.”

(Getty Images for Hulu)

Rooney suggested that the media’s representation of her, as a “voice of a generation” writer who split opinion, was linked to her youth and “the experience of being a young woman in the public eye [which] is not always a completely pleasant or easy one”.

“There’s so much to say and think and argue about when it comes to the role of young women in our culture,” she said. “But I would love not to be the focal point on which that discussion sometimes rests. I would love that not to be me.”

She said she was keen to shake off a tag that has followed her since the publication of her first novel, 2017’s Conversations with Friends, which branded her “Salinger for the Snapchat generation”.

“I really feel like I’m not lying when I say I’m quite keen to leave that all behind,” she said. “I didn’t actually want to be ‘the young novelist’; I just wanted to be good.”

(Faber)

Conversations With Friends, was adapted into a series by the BBC in 2022. Starring Alison Oliver, Sasha Lane, Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke, the show received mixed reviews, with criticism aimed at its pacing and the cast’s performances.

“Though it is undoubtedly slow, solipsistic, and self-satisfied, the show has an ambient appeal,” The Independent’s Nick Hilton wrote. “It is television designed to be watched out of the corner of your eye while scrolling through Instagram, peering in at strangers on two screens simultaneously.

“And if the prospect of watching the lives of a group of rather entitled millennials unravel at a pace closer to Captain Tom than Mo Farah doesn’t excite you, there are plenty of close-ups of beautiful people kissing to keep you distracted. In the end, Conversations with Friends, like its characters, doesn’t have much to say, but takes its sweet time saying it.”

Rooney’s third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, was published in 2021 to mixed reviews. Intermezzo is published by Faber & Faber on 24 September.