Sally Rooney gets photographed with an owl, looking unimpressed. I’m asked to ‘look zany’

We don’t see Sally Rooney very often. She emerges once every few years with the publication of a new book, a little like the sun creeping up the passage at Newgrange when we’re blessed with a clear sky on about one out of every four winter solstices.
She eschews the public eye, saying she’s not cut out for it, yet when I saw her interviewed by Fintan O’Toole last weekend at the National Concert Hall ahead of the release of her new novel, Intermezzo, she was putting on a pretty good show.
She opened with a little speech as Gaeilge and moved quickly into condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza – she has been publicly pro-Palestine for years.
During the interview portion she was so articulate, so effortlessly well read, so poised, so droll, so intensely deliberate about her work and her beliefs. If my eyes could have pinged out heart emojis, they would have.
It’s hard not being Sally Rooney. In 2021, when her third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, was published, she was photographed for the Guardian wearing a polo neck, holding an owl and looking unimpressed. I also had a book out in 2021, the fourth in the Complete Aisling series, which I co-write with Sarah Breen.
I remember how we sent the picture of Sally and the owl to each other, longing to be enigmatic enough to only have to pose rarely for photos and then when we do, to appear unmoved while holding a dignified bird.
If I were to be photographed with an owl, I would find it impossible to contain my glee. Publicity is a godsend for an author, but when Sarah and I are snapped together we are rarely pictured indifferent in a field.
The photographer will always encourage us to be zany. Leg kicks, big laughs, back-to-back poses. We’ve done them all. It suits our brand. We write comedic, commercial fiction which, while well-reviewed, has been described as “fluffy” or “an easy read” more times than my heart and ego can take.
I feel immediately disloyal, writing that. I’m immensely proud of the books we’ve written and have lost count of the number of people who’ve sought us out to tell us they hadn’t read a book in decades and then picked up an Aisling book. I take so much satisfaction in hearing these stories. Still, it’s hard not being Sally.
Sally would never heave out a simile likening a person to the winter solstice sun. For starters, she’d be more of a metaphor girlie. Rooney writes literary fiction that is commercially successful, which is the Holy Grail. At last weekend’s event she joked that her books “do sort of have plots”. Oh, to write a novel with such granular character detail and interaction that the plot is secondary (although, in fairness, our Aisling is so fleshed out I know what she would do in any given situation. Faced with a new Sally Rooney novel, she would listen to the audiobook on 1.5x speed on full alert for her mother to walk in exactly when the sexy bits come on).
Working on projects beyond Aisling I can get caught up in aspirations about intricate prose and complex themes, but that’s just my own snobbery piping up. Works of fiction across the genres and the labels and the bookshop tables are worthy and thrilling and entertaining and life changing. It is hard not being Sally, but we don’t need another one, or a wannabe.
[ Sally Rooney: ‘There is something Christian about my work, even if I would not describe myself as religious’Opens in new window ]
Rooney doomscrolls on her phone, just like the rest of us. She doesn’t have any public social media accounts, but she did admit to us in the NCH that she gets sucked into the screen just like anyone else. She is, after all, just a woman in her early 30s. Not just a millennial, but the reluctant “voice of a generation”. It would hurt my heart if she hasn’t at least spent some time on baby hippopotamus TikTok.
She’s fiercely protective of her privacy. There was a request before the event started that no photos be taken, which I believe she is entitled to. She was, however, extremely generous in sharing her process, her fears around publication and her heartfelt pleas not to forget those who are much less fortunate than us.
“What a dote!” I exclaimed to my pal as we left, before quickly informing her that I had actually met Rooney several years ago at the Irish Book Awards and we were therefore basically best friends. Maybe she can hook me up with that owl for my next photo shoot. I already have the polo neck.