Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

Unlike almost everyone else, I have not loved Sally Rooney's books, but that changes here. This is a winner. Her talent for wry humor remains, but this feels like a much more grown up story. The story is set in Dublin in 2022, from late summer to Christmas, the book follows two brothers: Peter, 32, a lawyer, and Ivan, 22, an amateur chess player, whose progress through the rankings has flatlined since their father, recently dead from cancer, first got ill in Ivan’s late teens. The undercurrent of the novel is the grief they are grappling with now that their father has died. Ivan is the awkward brother, and when his unexpected victory in a comeback event ends with him bedding the 36-year-old venue manager, Margaret, it sets Peter off his axis a bit. Peter is the charming brother and he carries on with women, two in particular; his former university debating partner, Sylvia, a literary academic and Naomi, a soon-to-be homeless student Ivan’s age. The plot is a classic farce. When Peter breaks up with Naomi, she’s got nowhere to go, and neither does Ivan’s dog, now that his mother is fed up with looking after it. But their father’s house is of course still empty. It’s a coming together waiting to happen. Ditto the potential for ill will in Peter’s disparaging response when Ivan confides in him about Margaret, who it turns out is still married, though she doesn't want to be. Ivan sees how his brother is being a hypocrite about age-gap relationships, all of which uncorks a lifetime of bad blood stored up around their parents’ divorce when Ivan was a child. A rekindling between Peter and Sylvia only makes him more of a hot mess. You see where it is going a long way off, but the journey is the pleasurable part, not the destination.