A little over two years ago, the novelist Sally Rooney seemed poised to take a well-earned victory lap. At 27, she had published two best-selling and acclaimed novels, “Conversations With Friends” and “Normal People,” which was nominated for the Man Booker Prize. “Maybe I am one of those people who writes two novels in their 20s then never writes anything else again.”Thankfully for her many devoted readers, Rooney gave it another try. “The title itself speaks to some of the book’s themes, it’s an unanswered question,” Mitzi Angel, the publisher of FSG, said. “The characters are contemplating a world in which the future is very uncertain for them — what’s the world of work going to look like, what’s going to happen to the planet, what are the politics we are all living through.

Source: New York Times January 12, 2021 13:52 UTC