M&B April Book Club Pick: Normal People
Reminiscent of John Green’s Looking for Alaska or Perks of Being a Wallflower, Sally Rooney’s second novel Normal People crafts an oft painfully accurate story of Millennials in love and the challenges of navigating undefined relationships. Focused on the unlikely but magnetic feelings between Connell and Marianne, we follow these characters as they navigate the (often perceived) judgements in their small Irish hometown, the confusion and elated independence of life at university in the big city of Dublin, and the sometimes lonely human experience.
Written from each character’s perspective, it provides a devastating window into the fragile nature of a moment, and the painful, sometimes life-defining outcomes of leaving things unsaid. Rooney deftly narrates the confusion, nerves and thrills of discovering one’s sexuality for the first time, the evolution of that sexuality with age and life experiences, and the tight-knit but different-for-all relationship between sex and self worth. Although it is an easy, quick read, there are deeper undercurrents to the novel, as it explores class dynamics, mental health and grief, abuse, and trauma.
As I read Normal People I found myself thinking of this one particular passage from The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, which jumped off the page and filled this tiny hole in my heart (the joy of having a feeling validated by shared experience) when I first read it a few years ago:
“So the first time she and Leo combusted, she'd practically been poised for the breakup. In some inexplicable way, she'd been looking forward to it and all its attendant drama, because wasn't there something nearly lovely–when you were young enough–about guts churning and tear ducts being put to glorious overuse? She recognized the undeniable satisfaction of the first emotional fissure because an unraveling was still something grown-up and, therefore, life affirming. See? The broken heart signalled. I loved enough to lose; I felt enough to weep. Because when you were young enough, the stakes of love were so very small, nearly insignificant. How tragic could a breakup be when it was part of the fabric of expectation from the beginning? The hackneyed fights, the late-night phone calls, the indignant recounting for friends over multiple drinks and in earshot of an appropriately flirtatious bartender–it was theatre for a certain type of person . . . Until it wasn't.”
Sally Rooney by Jonny L. Davies
Isn’t that the truth? When you fall in love for the first time, everything, even the heartbreak has this overwhelming sense of excitement to it. You throw yourself into love wholeheartedly, two feet in, no holds barred. You don’t know the pain of a breakup, or the loneliness of an independently-occupied bed after sleeping beside someone for months. You just love feeling like you’re on a team and the joy of whispering your secrets to someone you trust for the first time. And then when a breakup comes along, you let it hit you just as hard. For a while it feels like you will never feel happy again, all while knowing, deep down, there is more to come. More loves, more heartbreaks, more adventures. The next time, and the time after that, aren’t as easy. It becomes a little like emotional scar tissue, all the hurts and complexes we build up from people who let us down or who we were disappointed by. The story of Connell and Marianne goes a little something like that, which felt very tragic but also real.
If you give it a shot, let me know how you enjoy it, either in the comments below or through Instagram!
