Sally Rooney’s fourth novel is coming later this year.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish the Irish literary phenom’s Intermezzo in the fall, the press announced in a news release. It describes the novel as “an exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family.”
Rooney made her literary debut in 2017 with Conversations With Friends, following that up a year later with Normal People. The latter was a hit with readers in the U.S. and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and Women’s Prize for Fiction; it was adapted for a 12-part Hulu series starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal. Rooney’s most recent novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, was published in 2021 to much fanfare from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, which memorably distributed bucket hats and tote bags advertising the book.
Intermezzo will follow two brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek, the former a successful lawyer in his 30s and the latter a 22-year-old competitive chess player. Both are grieving the death of their father while navigating relationships with women.
Mitzi Angel, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, said in a statement, “Through the components of everyday life, Sally Rooney builds a world of ethical complexity that matches that of the great nineteenth-century novels. Intermezzo is an astonishing novel: it marks yet another advance in the work of a writer who captures our life and our times with more stylistic elan and generosity of spirit than ever.”
Intermezzo is slated for publication on Sept. 24.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
