Conversations with Friends
Rooney writes the inside of a mind with terrifying accuracy. Frances is difficult and you will recognise yourself in her immediately.
Frances and Nick
Sally Rooney's 2017 debut novel follows Frances, a twenty-one-year-old Dublin student who performs spoken word poetry with her ex-girlfriend Bobbi, as she begins an affair with Nick, a handsome married actor they meet at a literary event. The novel is told with cool, precise intelligence through Frances's point of view, tracking her contradictions, her Marxist politics, her desire to remain unsentimental about love while being consumed by it. Rooney published the novel at twenty-six and was immediately hailed as one of the most significant voices in contemporary fiction.
Reading Conversations with Friends
Awareness
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"I was always honest when people asked me about myself. I just didn't always explain the context.
"Sally Rooney
Rooney submitted Conversations with Friends as her MFA thesis at Trinity College Dublin. Her agent sent it to publishers while she was still completing her degree. It sold within weeks to Faber and Faber.
The novel was adapted into a BBC and Hulu series in 2022, following the enormous success of the Normal People adaptation in 2020. Rooney was closely involved in both productions.