Simply far too short ( )

This is the first short story by Sally Rooney I’ve read and I liked it. It’s similar to her full length novels in the style and manner. ( )

I've not been shy, in my reviews of Sally Rooney's first two novels, in expressing my disdain at the hype this writer gets. Her work is well-written chick-lit but chick-lit nonetheless, with none of the grace or insight you would expect of legitimate literature. It's atonal, superficial mood-wrangling that appeals to a certain cadre of readers who want their unexamined worldview reflected back at them and don't want to work for it either.

But I thought perhaps a short story would be different. Perhaps in this form, Rooney wouldn't have opportunity to indulge her psychoanalytic twiddling and quest for victimhood. Perhaps she wouldn't rely on tired raunch and modish non-punctuation to con and titillate her gullible readership. Perhaps she wouldn't b— "Not for the first time during these phone calls, I slipped my hand between my legs and Nathan pretended not to notice" (pg. 17).

Sigh. I guess not. Mr. Salary is more of the same – shallow, redundant middle-class wittering, peppered with sentimental clichés (dead mum, dad dying of cancer) and edgy, attention-seeking nihilism ("Would you grieve if I died? I asked him" (pg. 12)). Like all Rooney stories, it follows a performatively energy-sapped bore whose goal is the ultimate goal of every Rooney protagonist: to fuck a handsome older guy who has money. The "hero with a thousand faces", this ain't.

I think the maddening thing in her stories is that her characters never realise how safe they are: they indulge their every whim (apart from those they deny themselves in their bouts of dramatic ennui) and then present their self-inflicted, skin-deep scars as wounds of Christ. The only mercy is that this short story ends before the author can deploy phase two of her well-worn (and bafflingly successful) playbook: the thirst-slaked protagonist blaming the man (and "patriarchy") for her own lethargy, character flaws and life choices. ( )

Even though only forty plus page long, this little short story is exactly like all other Sally Rooney books. It precedes the novels, which will continue to echo the dynamics between the characters of this little book. ( )

Listened to in audio, then read a few months later.

Like her other work, this is a story of changing relationships, observations and reflections. Sukie comes back to Dublin from the US to visit her dying father in hospital and also to see Nathan. Is he a friend, replacement family figure or something else? I had forgotten that the story takes place around Christmas but I think that's because the festive season isn't really central to the story.

I enjoy Sally Rooney's stories about ambiguous relationships and all the confusions that come with them, and liked this deftly observed short work. ( )