Intermezzo Audiobook By Sally Rooney cover art

Intermezzo

A Novel

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Intermezzo

By: Sally Rooney
Narrated by: Éanna Hardwicke
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About this listen

Long-listed, Washington Post Best Books of the Year, 2024

New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, Audible.com Best of the Year, 2024

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

Long-listed, The Guardian (UK) Best Books of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, NPR Best Book of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, CPL: Chicago Public Library Best of the Best, 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
Best of 2024 Editors Select Family Life Genre Fiction World Literature Heartfelt Grief

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

Editorial Review

Sally Rooney raises her game
We may not be getting bucket hats this time, but a new Sally Rooney novel is still an EVENT. And Intermezzo is much more than a must-have accessory, though you’ll see it everywhere this fall. If you’ve been pining for Sally’s liquid sentences and diamond insights, here they are, this time in a tale of two brothers: Peter, a dashing early-thirtysomething who “goes along the surface of life very smoothly” according to Ivan, younger by a decade, a neurodiverse chess prodigy a bit past his prime—both of them navigating romances while facing the recent death of their father. I’m inhaling the vivid scenes and blasé bombshells—“Plain, unappealing people are by no means exempt from the experience of strong passions,” muses Ivan, for one. This is also a first-time departure from Rooney’s signature narrator Aoife McMahon. I will always love Aoife, but man, Éanna Hardwicke, who you know as Rob from TV’s Normal People, is the perfect voice for this novel: intelligent, charismatic, and (yes!) demurely sexy as only Irish men know how. Well played, all around.— Kat J., Audible Editor

What listeners say about Intermezzo

Highly rated for:

Poetic Writing Authentic Characters Compelling Relationships Profound Storytelling Emotional Depth
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Character driven story of brothers and their lovers

Loved the in-depth exploration of the psyche of the two brothers the book focuses on. They are grieving the recent death of their father and navigating romantic relationships that are a bit untraditional. The women characters are unusually open and understanding. It was refreshing to have women who sought to appreciate and respect one another while dealing with the damaged men in their lives. I felt like I really got to know the characters due to the way the author invites you into their intimate conversations. Not an action book, definitely an emotional one.

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Relationships always evolve

I liked this book though it took me until about chapter 3 to totally get into it. But it did come around and when it did it was so good. I love how the title actually reflects what goes on in the book because Intermezzo in chess means chess tactic where a player makes an unexpected move in the middle of a sequence to disrupt their opponent's plans and this is actually what happened with the characters.

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Standing Ovation!

Intricate development of characters might be a slow burn for some readers/listeners. But Rooney brilliantly pulls us into considering how judgement and perception affects our inner being, how we shape our lives and subsequently the lives of those around us. Sex scenes are necessary and superbly written puzzle pieces. Rooney is deeply skilled and I am grateful for Intermezzo.

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Lovely story of complex relationships.

A wonderful story about complex family relationships and managing one’s imperfections. Wonderful character development. And beautiful writing.

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Is a good intro

Good story, just feels like two intros and when we are ready for the issue it just ends, feels like I missed the ending, but just ends, I know Sally Rooney is the type of open endings, but in this book compare to normal people, I was hopping to get more, like I finally get a glance of Ivan and Peter, but that’s it, nothing more.

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close to great

This novel does what novels are meant to do. it makes you laugh, cry, and think. The writing itself is superbly crafted, a web of words that holds so much.

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Limited Series?

This is the first Sally Rooney book I’ve ‘read’ after watching Normal People. I would’ve loved this as a limited series more than a book, but it was nice background to listen to at work.

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Poverty in Prose

Sally Rooney is able to tell a beautiful family story with honesty and realism. And she decorates her story in believable dialogue with sympathy and insight into her characters.

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Absolutely incredible

I can’t believe how Sally Rooney can write two separate stream of consciousness voices and make them both so distinctly different from one and other. She’s an amazing writer, especially the way she can write about such intimate experiences in such a raw and poignant way while keeping it so relatable and beautiful. I loved this story and how it wove together so gracefully. Éanna Hardwicke was incredible with the timing of getting the two brothers just right, so well done. I cried a few times!!

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Grief and relationships

Occasionally incredibly gripping in her descriptions of interpersonal relationships and dynamics, as well as her commentary on the society we live in. I wasn’t gripped by this the same way I was normal people, nevertheless a beautiful tale.

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