Sally Rooney's fourth novel is her most structurally adventurous and emotionally devastating work. "Intermezzo" follows two brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek, in the aftermath of their father's death. Peter, a successful barrister in his 30s, is caught between two women. Ivan, a 22-year-old chess prodigy, falls for an older woman in a small town.
What sets this apart from Rooney's earlier work is the dual-perspective structure. She writes Peter's sections in fragmented, stream-of-consciousness bursts, while Ivan's chapters flow in clean, traditional prose. The contrast isn't just stylistic; it reveals how grief fractures one mind while clarifying another.
The chess metaphor never feels heavy-handed. Rooney treats the game as Ivan treats it: with quiet obsession and mathematical beauty. The romantic relationships are rendered with her trademark precision, but there's a new warmth here, a willingness to let her characters be genuinely kind to each other.
At 448 pages, it's her longest book, and there are stretches in Peter's sections that could have been trimmed. But the final 100 pages are breathtaking. Rooney has grown into a writer who can hold enormous emotional weight without flinching. This is her best book.