Intermezzo

A Novel

By: Sally Rooney

Narrated by: Éanna Hardwicke

Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Long-listed, Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, Time Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, Barnes and Noble Best New Books of the Year, 2024

"[B]rilliant narration by the actor Éanna Hardwicke"—Financial Times

"Éanna Hardwicke's narration highlights the rich emotionality of Rooney's newest novel. Hardwicke's smooth voice shifts to capture every mood—becoming desperately angry, bitter, and frantic yet also achingly tender, patient, and loving—as he performs a story of two grieving brothers."—AudioFile (Earphones Award Winner)

This program is read by actor Éanna Hardwicke, known for his role in Hulu's Normal People.

An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

©2024 Sally Rooney (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Bestseller Rooney returns with a boldly experimental and emotionally devastating story of estrangement . . . The novel’s deliberate pacing veers from the propulsiveness of Normal People and the deep character work contrasts with the topicality of Beautiful World, but in many ways this feels like Rooney’s most fully realized work, especially as she channels the modernist styles of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf . . . Even the author’s skeptics are liable to be swept away by this novel’s forceful currents of feeling.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves . . . The characters remain reach-out-and-touch-them real . . . Her grandmaster status remains intact.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Compelling

Dialogue and scene making…both excellent. Rooney plunges into the thoughts of two brothers in this novel. A new approach for her. A bit sappy at the end but she earned it.

Beyond Excellent!

The way Sally writes is so refreshing, endearing, and capturing of all that is so deeply human. The narrator adds to this poetic style with perfect tone and inflection. I grew to love all of these beautiful characters like they are dear friends and knowing them has helped me love my own family more and accept the differences that threaten to pull us apart. I want to listen over and over and I plan to! A+ to author and story and performance!

So deep and profound

I love this book. The characters are fleshed out so deeply and their dilemma is poignant. I was sad when the book was over.

Emotional and raw

Great narration. An incredibly moving story that will leave you both heart broken and full of love. Would highly recommend.

Understanding, Forgiveness and Healing

This book delves deep into human emotions in a profound and poetic way. I’ve listened to sections over and over again. Her characters are so real and their lives though complicated can be related to. I would love for there to be a part II.

Best novel I’ve read in a long time

I absolutely loved this novel. It captivated me with its rich language, characters and story. It felt real, rang true on every page. Having an MA in English Literature, I’m a bit of a book snob. This one didn’t disappoint! Sally Rooney is a mater storyteller.

Beautifully Written & Narrated

As a participant in a short story group, we read an excerpt of Intermezzo that was recently published in The New Yorker. While I had never read any of Sally Rooney’s books, after reading the short story of when Ivan meets Margaret, I immediately downloaded the book. The story is so beautifully constructed and the characters are brilliantly brought to life, that upon finishing the book, I began looking forward to what I imagined would be the next chapter or this compelling novel.

I found it to be captivating

I liked the geographical setting. The narrator eloquently spoken. The story tapped into many human emotions love, passion, empathy, compassion, anger and how complicated relationships can be. Grieving that comes with the loss of a loved one. This was a novel that is not in the genre I ordinarily read but it was also the occasional novel that I pick up and can’t put down.

Lovely Interpersonal Tanglings

Beautifully written, quiet, considerate, contemplative, passionate and empathetic. A perfect autumn listen. Grateful to have listened for a book club and will probably reread again in the future!

The Nature of Grief

I won’t lie, this got to be a slog. The sheer amount of navel gazing oy. But. What you realize as it goes on is that it captures so well how destabilizing it is to lose a parent. How it pushes you off center without your understanding that that is what is going on. And the characters manage to grow through it, though they come so close to blowing up all the relationships. It is worth sticking with.