‘Intermezzo’ author Sally Rooney on the approach that has made her successful: ‘I don’t care about my career’
Sally Rooney's award-winning novels have sold millions of copies and been adapted into hit shows. With her latest book "Intermezzo" hitting shelves this week, the 33-year-old is sticking with what has worked for her.
Asked by the New York Times about the similarities between her books, as well as what plans she has to change things up in the future, Rooney said she doesn't "feel myself thinking about my growth as an artist."
"I don't care about my career," she said. "I think about 'How do I make this book the perfect version of what it can be?' I never think about it in relation to my other work."
For Rooney, whose novels explore the complexity of interpersonal relationships with themes like identity and love, changing things up for the sake of changing things up isn't appealing.
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"There is a huge cultural fixation with novelty and growth. Everything has to grow all the time. Get bigger, sell more and be different — novelty, reinvention," she said. "I don't find that very interesting."
Indeed, Rooney responded to the critique of her novels that characters "could walk into another one of those novels" seamlessly by referencing works by literary giants of the past.
"I'm wary of saying this, because it could sound like I'm trying to compare myself to the great masters of the past and I absolutely am not, but when I look at writers whose work has transformed my life, I look at Austen, Henry James, Dostoyevsky," she said. "Those writers produced work that adheres to what you're describing, where it feels like a figure from one of their books could stroll into any of the other novels that they wrote and be at home."
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"But each of the novels is its own world, and it's intense and it's profound and it's beautiful," she continued. "That's what I'm striving for."
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