A Haunting Meditation on Loss and Love
Sally Rooney’s latest novel, “Intermezzo,” is a quietly devastating portrait of two brothers grappling with the aftermath of their father’s death. With her characteristic precision and emotional acuity, Rooney delves into the messy, often contradictory feelings that arise in the wake of profound loss. The result is a work that feels both intimately familiar and startlingly new—a book that lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned.
At its core, “Intermezzo” is about the ways we fumble towards connection in the face of grief. Rooney’s prose is as sharp and incisive as ever, laying bare her characters’ inner lives with unflinching honesty. But there’s a new depth here, a sense of hard-won wisdom that sets this novel apart from her earlier works. Where “Conversations with Friends” and “Normal People” focused on the heady rush of youth and first love, “Intermezzo” grapples with weightier themes: mortality, regret, and the struggle to forge meaningful relationships in adulthood.
The Koubek Brothers: A Study in Contrasts
The novel centers on Peter and Ivan Koubek, two Irish brothers who couldn’t be more different. Peter, in his early thirties, is a successful Dublin lawyer—outwardly confident and put-together, but secretly struggling with insomnia and a growing dependence on prescription drugs. Ivan, ten years younger, is a socially awkward chess prodigy still living at home and working odd jobs.
Rooney alternates between their perspectives, allowing us to see how each brother views the other and, more poignantly, how they view themselves. It’s a masterful bit of characterization, revealing the ways our self-image can diverge wildly from how others perceive us.
Peter, for all his professional success, is a mess of insecurities and unresolved trauma. He’s caught between two women: Sylvia, his enduring first love who’s grappling with chronic pain, and Naomi, a free-spirited college student who both intrigues and unsettles him. Ivan, meanwhile, surprises himself by entering into a relationship with Margaret, an older woman dealing with her own complicated past.
Grief as a Catalyst for Change
The death of the Koubek patriarch serves as the novel’s inciting incident, but Rooney is less interested in the immediate shock of loss than in its long-term reverberations. How do we move forward when the ground beneath our feet has shifted? What happens to our sense of self when a key figure in our life story is suddenly absent?
For Peter, grief manifests as a kind of restless energy, pushing him to make rash decisions in his personal life. There’s a sense that he’s trying to outrun his pain, to fill the void left by his father’s absence with new experiences and relationships. Ivan, by contrast, retreats inward, finding solace in the structured world of chess and in his budding romance with Margaret.
Rooney captures the nonlinear nature of grief with remarkable sensitivity. There are moments of surprising lightness amidst the sorrow, and times when pain resurfaces unexpectedly. In one particularly affecting scene, Ivan breaks down while explaining a chess strategy to Margaret, the familiar routine suddenly charged with the weight of memory:
“He swallows, feeling his jaw weakening again, sense in his throat that if he tries to answer he will only cry, so drunk he can hardly see, and he lays his head on her lap again. I don’t hate you, he says. Tight and painful the sob in his throat. If I say what I really feel it’s just worse, he says. But I don’t hate you, not at all.”
The Complexities of Modern Relationships
As in her previous novels, Rooney excels at capturing the nuances of contemporary relationships. The connections between her characters are rarely straightforward, often complicated by power imbalances, miscommunication, and conflicting desires.
Peter’s relationships with Sylvia and Naomi serve as a study in contrasts. With Sylvia, there’s a shared history and deep emotional intimacy, but also the pain of what might have been. Naomi represents a kind of escape, a chance to reinvent himself, but their age difference and vastly different life experiences create their own set of challenges.
Ivan and Margaret’s relationship is perhaps the most intriguing, defying easy categorization. There’s an element of maternal care in Margaret’s interactions with Ivan, but also a genuine romantic and sexual connection. Rooney resists the urge to moralize, instead exploring the complexities of their bond with empathy and nuance.
Rooney’s Evolving Style
Stylistically, “Intermezzo” feels like a natural evolution of Rooney’s earlier work. Her prose remains crisp and economical, with moments of startling beauty interspersed throughout. But there’s a new maturity here, a willingness to sit with difficult emotions and resist easy resolutions.
Rooney’s dialogue continues to be a highlight, capturing the rhythms of contemporary speech with uncanny accuracy. Her characters speak in fits and starts, trailing off mid-sentence, circling back to earlier points. It’s in these conversations—often meandering, sometimes frustratingly indirect—that the heart of the novel lies.
One particularly striking aspect of “Intermezzo” is Rooney’s use of internal monologue. We’re privy to Peter and Ivan’s deepest thoughts and insecurities, creating an almost claustrophobic sense of intimacy. It’s a risky technique, but one that pays off beautifully, allowing us to see the gap between the brothers’ inner lives and their outward behavior.
Themes of Class and Privilege
While not as central as in her earlier works, Sally Rooney’s interest in class dynamics is still evident in “Intermezzo.” Peter’s professional success and Ivan’s more precarious financial situation create an underlying tension in their relationship. There’s a sense that Peter’s grief is, in some ways, a luxury—he has the time and resources to process his emotions, while Ivan must continue to scrape by.
Naomi’s background as a working-class student adds another layer to this exploration. Her relationship with Peter is colored by their different social standings, with Naomi both attracted to and resentful of his privilege. Rooney handles these dynamics with her usual subtlety, avoiding heavy-handed commentary in favor of small, telling details.
A Meditation on Memory and Identity
At its core, Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is a novel about the stories we tell ourselves—about our families, our relationships, and our place in the world. The death of the Koubek father forces Peter and Ivan to reckon with their memories and reassess their understanding of their family dynamics.
Rooney’s exploration of memory is particularly poignant. We see how the brothers’ recollections of shared experiences diverge, and how the absence of their father creates a kind of narrative vacuum. There’s a growing awareness that their understanding of their family history is incomplete, colored by their own biases and limitations.
This theme comes to a head in a powerful scene where Peter and Ivan argue about their father’s legacy:
“Ivan rises to his feet now, and in Peter’s lap the dog’s eyes come open, watching. As far as the double doors to the kitchen Ivan paces and then turns back. There’s more to it than that, he says. You don’t show me respect.
I’m not sure that’s entirely fair, Peter answers.
You look down on me. You treat me like a child.
Smoothing his hand slowly over the dog’s coat, Peter replies: Well, you’re my little brother. I’m a lot older than you are. Maybe I do find it difficult to accept that you’re an adult now. But that’s not to say I look down on you.”
Conclusion: A Quietly Profound Achievement
“Intermezzo” cements Sally Rooney’s place as one of the most insightful and emotionally intelligent writers of her generation. It’s a novel that takes risks, both in its subject matter and its narrative structure, and those risks pay off spectacularly.
What lingers most about “Intermezzo” is its profound empathy—for its characters, certainly, but also for the messy, often painful process of being human. Rooney doesn’t offer easy answers or tidy resolutions. Instead, she gives us something far more valuable: a reminder that even in our darkest moments, connection and understanding are possible.
In the end, “Intermezzo” is a novel about the spaces between—between siblings, between lovers, between who we are and who we want to be. It’s in these interludes, Rooney suggests, that the real work of living happens. And it’s here, in the quiet moments between the big events of our lives, that we might just find a way forward.
Related Works and Author Background
Readers familiar with Sally Rooney’s previous novels, “Conversations with Friends” (2017) and “Normal People” (2018), will find both continuity and evolution in “Intermezzo.” While her earlier works focused primarily on the romantic and social lives of young adults, “Intermezzo” demonstrates Rooney’s ability to tackle more mature themes with equal dexterity.
For those new to Rooney’s work, “Intermezzo” serves as an excellent introduction to her distinctive style and preoccupations. Fans of contemporary literary fiction might also enjoy the works of authors like Ottessa Moshfegh, Rachel Cusk, and Brandon Taylor, who similarly explore the complexities of modern relationships and identity with unflinching honesty.
