In Sally Rooney’s new novel, Intermezzo, the characters’ interactions seem as minutely calculated as the moves on a chess board. There’s Peter, a thirty-something barrister, torn between his sexual relationship with student Naomi and a more emotionally and spiritually rich connection with his ex, Sylvia. This is a classic Rooney setup, with the vibrant, broke, sensual Naomi juxtaposed with the martyr-­like Sylvia, who suffers from chronic pain. ‘The nature and extent of her suffering’, Peter observes of Sylvia, ‘has lifted her free from the petty frustrations of mere inconvenience.’ He views his relationship with ‘wild animal’ Naomi as ‘a kind of moral dilemma’ because sometimes he gives her money so she can get out of her overdraft. This bothers him, and he limply observes that both giving and receiving money can be ‘exploitative’. Both women, of course, are thin.

Decidedly more interesting is Peter’s brother, Ivan, a 22-year-old chess player. He has recently finished a degree in theoretical physics, still wears braces and is almost cripplingly awkward. He engages in a relationship with an older woman, Margaret, who is married to, though separated from, an alcoholic. Before they have sex, she asks him sympathetically if he’s a virgin. The fact that he isn’t makes it only more embarrassing. When she touches him, he’s moved to think that ‘the story of life’ is okay, actually, even if it is a ‘passing mystery’. Good sex will do that to you, especially if you are twenty-two and a physics graduate. The relationship between Ivan and Peter is movingly portrayed. Ten years apart in age, they’re alternately frustrated and comforted by each other as they grieve the recent death of their father. 

Intermezzo is longer than Rooney’s previous books, with more characters. She has adopted a free indirect style, the viewpoint shifting between Peter, Ivan and Margaret. It’s almost impossible not to enjoy the prose, though it’s looser and more naturalistic than in her previous novels, marked by Peter’s cascading, solipsistic