Normal People by Sally Rooney

Some time ago, we had the pleasure of introducing a relatively unknown novelist by the name of Sally Rooney, whose very first work, Conversations With Friends, so captivated her audience that she was catapulted from obscurity to fame in a matter of weeks.
Despite a curious, and continuing, insistence on not attaching quotation marks to the dialogue for which she is known, two years later she's done it again. Normal People, also set in and around Dublin, with equally young protagonists, is every bit as good as its predecessor, and off to an even more stellar start. #1 in her homeland, and headed that way here, it concerns the ups and downs of two otherwise smart young people, Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron - she well off, from a good family; he impoverished from a poor one - whose natural shyness and different backgrounds belie their devotion to each other, and prevents them from letting down their defenses and declaring themselves.

Spread over four years, and building to an intense finale, the result is a succession of social setbacks that would normally ruin a relationship. The fact that they don't is our author's hallmark, which makes for a highly satisfying romance that appeals, once again, as much to the male of the species as the female.

Warmly recommended.

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