Fiction Sally Rooney's characters aren’t quite compelling enough. Photo: Kalpesh Lathigra In Sally Rooney’s new novel, two grieving brothers find solace in questionable romantic pursuits. Peter and Ivan Koubek, aged 32 and 22 respectively, have recently lost their father.
Peter, an accomplished Dublin lawyer, is seeing Naomi, an impecunious college student, in an arrangement that seems troublingly transactional. He’s also spending lots of time with his ex-girlfriend, Sylvia, a brilliant academic who suffers with long-term chronic pain; their relationship, though ostensibly platonic, is abnormally intimate. Join the Irish Independent WhatsApp channel Stay up to date with all the latest news.
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