Why it’s essential
With her sophomore novel, a story about first love, intimacy, and gender and class dynamics, cemented her reputation as the first great novelist of the millennial generation.
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What is Normal People about?
follows the troubled yet ultimately life-transforming relationship between the brilliant, woefully misunderstood Marianne and Connell, the son of her family's housecleaner.
Editor’s review
Mysia is a book person who loves escaping into twisty mysteries and contemporary fiction driven by complicated characters.
A few summers ago, I was dealing with an illness in my family, feeling unsettled, and longing to travel to a magical land of greener pastures and shamrocks. I became obsessed with listening to books set in Ireland and performed by Irish narrators, which led me to Aoife McMahon and . And that’s how I discovered , the outstanding Irish novelist. The way Rooney writes about insecure, impulsive, and searching young people who get caught up in tormented relationships is so real and raw. It’s impossible not to feel for her characters—even when they make you want to scream, "What were you thinking?" And especially when what they’ve done or endured or lost makes you cry.
I’ve read all three of Rooney’s novels, which are all brilliantly narrated by McMahon, and characters in each, particularly Frances in Conversations with Friends and Alice in , have stayed with me. Yet none of Rooney’s characters has affected me as powerfully as the beautiful, intelligent, wounded Marianne in Normal People.
When the novel opens, we meet Marianne Sheridan hanging out at her mansion of a home in the (fictional) small town of Carricklea in Sligo County. Soon, the doorbell rings, and we meet Connell Waldron, who has arrived to pick up his mother, Lorraine, the Sheridan family’s housecleaner. Aside from going to the same secondary school, Marianne and Connell have nothing in common. He’s popular, athletic, and well-liked; she’s a loner and everyone thinks she’s "weird." Yet, as Marianne sits at her kitchen counter snacking on chocolate spread straight from the jar, Connell confides an embarrassing encounter at school and finds this odd girl wonderfully easy to talk to. Despite their differences and social tangles, Marianne and Connell form a close bond, strengthened by their shared passion for good books and great writing, and start sleeping together.
