conversations with friends by sally rooney

Unlike Marianne and Connell in Normal People-lovers too purposely crafted as yin and yang, in a contrivance that felt even more conspicuous when interpreted on screen-each of the four main characters comes across as a complete, internally consistent person whose relationship with every other character is unique. It’s a low-stakes premise, and not a particularly imaginative one, but as in the book, Conversations becomes remarkable through its details. Simple in structure and staging but rich in psychological insight, the show took me back to a time-not so far in the past, but eons ago in discourse-years-before Rooney became a wedge issue, when she was just an intriguing new voice for the young, educated, and dreamy. Over 12 luxuriously paced half-hour episodes, co-produced with BBC Three and slated to premiere on May 15, Conversations follows a pair of college girls in Dublin who develop a mutual infatuation with a glamorous, 30-something married couple. Now, inevitably, that book is a Hulu series, from the same team that adapted Rooney’s Normal Peoplefor the streaming service in 2020. Which makes it hard to believe that her debut novel, Conversations With Friends, appeared just five years ago. Whether you consider the 31-year-old Irish author to be the first great millennial novelist or a writer of middlebrow romances seeded with trendy anticapitalist musings, it’s more than likely that if you keep up with contemporary literature, you’ve formed an opinion on her work. So much has been said about Sally Rooney, in the mainstream press as well as in literary circles, that it can feel as though she’s been part of the discussion forever.

Conversations with friends by sally rooney