Sally Rooney, photographed for the New Statesman in London by Kalpesh Lathigra

Sally Rooney on sex, power and the art of being normal

The 27-year-old Booker-nominated author, hailed as the voice of millennial fiction, discusses the success of her second novel, Normal People.

BY ANNA LESZKIEWICZ

12 SEPTEMBER 20189

 Before I interview Sally Rooney, I catch a glimpse of her having her photograph taken. Dressed simply in dark blue, tapered trousers, a light, neutral top, and no jewellery, she holds her chin in different positions on instruction, looks in different directions. The process of being photographed is not something she particularly enjoys. Lately, she has been photographed a lot.

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which Rooney is the novelist of the moment. At 27, she has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize (the youngest nominee is still Jon McGregor, who was 26 when longlisted in 2002). She has been claimed, in reviews, interviews and on social media, as a totemic novelist for the millennial generation. Most of the reviews for her second novel Normal People were strikingly adoring: writers referred almost maternally to their battered copies and on Instagram people posed with early-release proofs. Connell, one of the book’s main characters, attends a literary reading and reflects bitterly: “all books were ultimately marketed as status symbols, and all writers participated to some degree in this marketing.”