Dear Great Book Guru, Now with Halloween over and Thanksgiving a few weeks away, I am is search of a good book to get me through the cold dark weeks ahead. Something captivating and meaningful… Fall into Fall
Dear Falling into Fall, The much awaited and celebrated
latest Sally Rooney novel has arrived on
the literary scene: INTERMEZZO. Rooney is a thirty-three year old Irish writer
who has written a number of very successful novels – some made into movies -
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE and A CONVERSATION WITH FRIENDS, among others. Her latest deals with two brothers grieving
the death of their father. Peter is a thirty-three-year-old very successful
lawyer and academic while Ivan is his much younger brother – a chess prodigy
and very socially awkward. Peter is involved
with two women – Naomi who is essentially homeless and in her early twenties
and Sylvia, a brilliant college professor who is permanently disabled from an
earlier car accident. The story opens with Ivan attending a chess
tournament and meeting Margaret who is ten years older and struggling to
recover from an abusive marriage. The
story is told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of the brothers and
the women who love them. The brothers actively dislike each other through much
of the novel and it is only through the women in their lives do we get to know
or like them. By the end of the novel, we realize both men are deeply grieving
past losses and only the present, fleeting, intermittent moments of love can
offer them peace. A challenging book but
worthwhile – recommended!