Normal People is a 2018 novel by the Irish author Sally Rooney. Normal People is Rooney's second novel, published after Conversations with Friends (2017). It was first published by Faber & Faber on 30 August 2018.[3] The book became a best-seller in the US, selling almost 64,000 copies in hardcover in its first four months of release.[4] A critically acclaimed and Emmy nominated television adaptation of the same name aired from April 2020 on BBC Three and Hulu. A number of publications ranked it one of the best books of the 2010s.
 First edition cover | |
| Author | Sally Rooney |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Aoife McMahon |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel (Romance) |
| Set in | Dublin and Carricklea, County Sligo[1] |
| Publisher | Faber & Faber |
Publication date | 30 August 2018 |
| Publication place | Ireland |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 266 |
| Awards | 2019 British Book Award for Book of the Year[2] |
| ISBN | 978-0-571-33464-3 |
| OCLC | 1061023590 |
| 823/.92 | |
| LC Class | PR6118.O59 N67 2018 |
Synopsis
editThe novel follows the complex friendship and relationship between two teenagers from different social classes, Connell and Marianne, who both attend the same secondary school in County Sligo, Ireland, and, later, Trinity College Dublin (TCD). It is set during the post-2008 Irish economic downturn, from 2011 through 2015.[5] Connell is a popular, handsome, and highly intelligent secondary school student from a poor home who begins a very intimate erotic relationship with the unpopular, intimidating, equally intelligent, and wealthy Marianne, whose mother employs Connell's mother as a housecleaner. Connell is very insecure and shy about the relationship, so he keeps the affair a secret from school friends, but ends up attending Trinity with Marianne after the summer and reconciling with her. Well-off Marianne blossoms at university, becoming pretty and popular, while Connell struggles for the first time in his life to fit in properly with his peers. The two weave in and out of each other's lives during their university years, developing an intense bond that exposes their traumas and insecurities.
Reception
editNormal People received wide critical acclaim. According to Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on 61 critic reviews, with 34 "raves", 22 "positive" and five "mixed".[6] On Books in the Media, a site that aggregates critics' book reviews, it received a 
(4.52 out of 5), based on 20 reviews.[7] In the July/August 2019 issue of Bookmarks, which also aggregates critics' reviews, the book received a 
(4.0 out of 5).[8][9]
Normal People was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize.[10] It was voted the 2018 Waterstones Book of the Year[11] and won Best Novel at the 2018 Costa Book Awards.[12] In 2019, the novel was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.[13] The same year, it ranked 25th on The Guardian's list of "The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.[14]
Irish Independent editor Fionnán Sheahan called the book a polemic, noting that Rooney has called herself a Marxist and that the book features discussions about The Communist Manifesto and Doris Lessing's feminist novel The Golden Notebook.[15]
Entertainment Weekly writers ranked the book the 10th-best of the decade, with Seija Rankin writing, "Both of Sally Rooney's novels capture the millennial ethos with raw honesty and impeccable insight. But what she broke ground with in Conversations With Friends, she perfected in Normal People."[16]
In The New York Times, Dwight Garner wrote, "Sally Rooney's sentences are droll, nimble and matter-of-fact. There's nothing particularly special about them, except for the way she throws them. She's like one of those elite magicians who can make a playing card pierce the rind of a watermelon."[17]
Awards
edit| Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Costa Book Award | Novel | Won | [12] |
| Irish Book Award | Novel | Won | ||
| Man Booker Prize | — | Longlisted | [10] | |
| Waterstones Book of the Year | — | Won | [18] | |
| 2019 | British Book Award | Book of the Year | Won | [2] |
| Dylan Thomas Prize | — | Longlisted | [19] | |
| Encore Award | — | Won | [20] | |
| Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award | — | Shortlisted | ||
| Women's Prize for Fiction | — | Longlisted | [13] | |
| The Writers' Prize | — | Longlisted | [21] | |
| 2020 | Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence | Fiction | Longlisted | [22] |
| Europese Literatuurprijs | — | Shortlisted | [23] | |
| International Dublin Literary Award | — | Longlisted | [24] |
Adaptation
editIn May 2019, BBC Three and Hulu announced that a TV series based on the novel was set to be produced. It premiered on 26 April 2020 on BBC Three and 27 April 2020 on the Australian streaming service Stan.[25] In Ireland, the series began airing on RTÉ One on 28 April 2020. The series stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell.[26] The show garnered critical acclaim and became BBC iPlayer's most-watched show of 2020 with over 62 million streams that year.[27]
Themes
editNormal People has themes of love across class division. The main characters, Marianne and Connell, know each other from school but also because Connell's mother is a cleaner for Marianne's mother.[28] This establishes the class divide in their relationship.
Marianne and Connell have different views of their socioeconomic backgrounds.[29] Connell feels that he is trapped in a cycle where the money he spends on Marianne comes from his mother who gets it from Marianne's family whereas Marianne seems unbothered by spending money.[28] Connell lets the class divide come between them numerous times as he fears how he will be perceived. In school, Connell is popular and well liked by his classmates, unlike Marianne. This causes him to ask her to keep their relationship secret so that people do not find out his mum works for hers.[28]
When the pair both attend Trinity College, the class division becomes more apparent.[29] Marianne easily fits in with her upper-class classmates who come from similar backgrounds, some of whom look down on Connell for his lower socioeconomic status.[30] As their relationship continues, their class background drives them apart. Marianne and Connell start to find friends and partners in their respective social classes. When Marianne starts to date Jamie in their second year at university, Connell feels out of place in her world because of his lack of wealth.[30]
Socioeconomic class drives Marianne and Connell apart as they navigate early adulthood. Rooney uses these characters to explore how class divides keep people apart.
References
edit- ^ Hagan, Rachel (31 May 2019). "The BBC Unveils Plans For Adaptation Of Normal People By Sally Rooney". Elle. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ a b "Sally Rooney's Normal People wins big at British Book Awards". BBC News. 14 May 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ "Normal People". Faber & Faber. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
- ^ Grady, Constance (3 September 2019). "The cult of Sally Rooney". Vox. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
- ^ Rooney, Sally (2019), Normal people A Novel, Inc OverDrive, New York, ISBN 978-1-9848-4334-0, OCLC 1090829156, retrieved 7 May 2021
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Normal People". Book Marks. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
- ^ "Normal People Reviews". Books in the Media. Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
- ^ "Normal People". Bookmarks. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
- ^ "Normal People". Bibliosurf (in French). 4 October 2023. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
- ^ a b Flood, Alison (23 July 2018). "Man Booker prize 2018 longlist includes graphic novel for the first time". The Guardian.
- ^ "Love story Normal People is Waterstones' book of the year". BBC News. 29 November 2018.
- ^ a b "The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es named Costa Book of the Year 2018". Front Row. BBC Radio 4.
- ^ a b "Announcing the Women's Prize 2019 Longlist". Women's Prize for Fiction. 4 March 2019. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
- ^ "The 100 best books of the 21st century". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
- ^ Sheahan, Fionnán (23 May 2020). "It's Marianne's fault we can't get a government to satisfy Normal People". Irish Independent. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
The author of Normal People is a self-professed Marxist... her politics seeps through her writing. It's no accident the central protagonists of the book that has captured the nation's imagination are the rich girl living in the mansion and the poor boy whose mother works as her family's cleaner. The TV version glosses over the discussions around 'The Communist Manifesto' and the feminist bible 'The Golden Notebook'.
- ^ Rankin, Sally (25 November 2019). "Here are EW's top 10 fiction books of the decade". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
- ^ Garner, Dwight (8 April 2019). "Sally Rooney's 'Normal People' Explores Intense Love Across Social Classes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
- ^ "Normal People". Waterstones. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
- ^ "Dylan Thomas Prize longlist". Retrieved 2 October 2023.
- ^ "Encore Award 2019 Winner". Royal Society of Literature. 13 June 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
- ^ Lea, Richard (18 March 2019). "Anna Burns and Sally Rooney on Rathbones Folio prize longlist". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
- ^ "Longlist | Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence". www.ala.org. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
- ^ "Europese Literatuurprijs shortlist". Europese Literatuurprijs. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
- ^ "Normal People". 9 November 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
- ^ Russo, Rebecca (1 April 2020). "An adaptation of Sally Rooney's novel 'Normal People' is heading to Stan". Time Out Melbourne. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
- ^ "Hulu Orders New Series: "Normal People"". The Futon Critic. 30 May 2019.
- ^ "Normal People easily biggest series on BBC iPlayer with 62.7 million streams in 2020". Radio Times. 8 December 2020.
- ^ a b c Rooney, Sally (2018). Normal People. Canada: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780735276475.
- ^ a b Garner, Dwight (8 April 2019). "Sally Rooney's 'Normal People' Explores Intense Love Across Social Classes". New York Times.
- ^ a b Eppel, Alan (5 July 2022). "Normal People: the self-at-best and the self-at-worst". Journal of Psychiatry Reform. 8 (5).