Normal People
2018
- sex
- romance
- contemporary
- dublin (ireland)
- fiction
- man-woman relationships
- literary fiction
- nyt:combined-print-and-e-book-fiction=2019-05-05
- fiction, romance, contemporary
- dublin (ireland), fiction
The story
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.
What it’s like
Spare, unshowy prose in close third person and short clipped sentences, the kind of text that sits quietly on the page like a plain white room with a window open onto a grey Dublin street. Its world is domestic and understated: kitchens, pubs, bedsits, a university campus in cold light, rain that never quite stops, cups of tea going cold while two people talk around what they mean. The mood is intimate and melancholic without being bleak, a slow ache of longing and near-misses rather than drama. Pacing is measured, with long stretches of dialogue and interior reflection, and the emotional register stays low and precise. Its central arc follows two young people who keep drifting apart and pulling back together, each learning slowly how much they can risk for the other. Sexual content appears throughout, often frank and explicit in places, and there is some emotional cruelty and self-harm, but no graphic violence. It suits a rainy Sunday, a late-night read alone, or a long train journey. It is for readers who love quiet, observant romance and close attention to class, friendship and the awkwardness of first love.
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