In recent years, Irish author Sally Rooney, 33, has been considered a wunderkind of the literary world, thanks to the breakout success of 2017’s Conversations with Friends, 2018’s Normal People and 2021’s Beautiful World, Where Are You.

The Irish writer’s keenly intelligent new novel swaps her formidable female leads for two brothers summoned together by grief

She has been called ‘the voice of a generation’ – an adage she reportedly hates. Either way, Sally Rooney seems to have ditched her typical exploration of ennui-plagued love-lorn millennials for Intermezzo: A Novel,