Rather, the women have repressed themselves: they are too guarded to articulate their vulnerabilities. The apparatus of church and state haven’t repressed these people. Similarly, that great stalwart of Irish writing, the alcoholic father, is present, but he is a spent force, having been dispatched from the family home years ago the greatest trouble he causes is when he stops paying Frances her monthly allowance. In Conversations With Friends, Frances’s mother describes it as “a real shame” when the girls break up. In earlier Irish fiction, the narrative would have focused on the social tensions surrounding a gay relationship – and a female one at that. Her characters work in the arts and denounce the evils of capitalism while living off inherited wealth.

But it’s an absolute certainty that Beautiful World, Where Are You, and Conversations with Friends will keep the heated cultural conversations going.Rooney sets her story in the post-crash era, among a Dublin elite. Who knows what the world will look like when these new works make it to us. When Hulu’s sultry take on Normal People appeared last April, the world was deep in the throes of a global pandemic, and many saw the show as a kind of outlet for pent-up angst and desire. A few months ago, Hulu announced it was going forward with an adaptation of the author’s debut, Conversations with Friends, reuniting Rooney (who’s helping pen the show’s scripts) with co-writer Alice Birch and Oscar-nominated director Lenny Abrahamson. The publication of Beautiful World, Where Are You is not the only thing Rooney’s fans have to look forward to this year. “I’m not trying to say, ‘Hey, everyone who’s not our age, this is what it’s like!’” “I feel no obligation to act as an interpreter,” she told in 2019. However, this whole “voice of a generation” thing is a label with which Rooney herself is not terribly comfortable. She captures so acutely the anxieties of social interactions in the time of Twitter, and whether or not true romance is possible under the shadow of late-stage capitalism.

It’s not difficult to see why readers and critics are taken with her work. Rooney has emerged as a preeminent voice of her generation: young people on the cusp of adulthood who came of age during deep economic and existential turmoil.

Sally rooney books review