How Sally Rooney became the ‘voice of a generation’

Sally Rooney’s new novel, Intermezzo, is finally here – and nearly everyone I know seems to be reading it. It’s almost like the pre-streaming days, when everyone would settle on the sofa at the same time to watch the new hit TV series. The sense that we were all part of the same unfolding experience of a story was part of the joy.

Not many authors can achieve that in this era of the digital kaleidoscope when myriad creative experiences can be accessed at the touch of a button. Rooney’s cult status has led to her being described as the “voice of a generation”. The label generally refers to an author whose work particularly resonates with people in their 20s and 30s. But why have Rooney’s books had this effect? And who were the literary voices of previous generations?

Logically, of course, the phrase is inaccurate when applied to any single writer. Generations include vastly different cohorts and people from diverse backgrounds, and no authorial voice can actually represent them all. Rooney couldn’t, even if everyone on the planet were reading Intermezzo right now – which they’re not. At least, not quite. And yet, as a phrase used to describe a writer whose work has had a notably greater impact than most others, it is worth interrogating.

To be the person crowned with this label – to have to embody “the voice of a generation” – must feel simultaneously like an honour and a burden. Rooney herself has outwardly rejected it. In 2018 she told the Guardian: “I certainly never intended to speak for anyone other than myself. Even myself I find it difficult to speak for.”

And yet she invariably speaks persuasively and cogently in public events about her books: an ability which no doubt stems from her background as a champion debater.

This ability also brings a rare clarity to her writing. Rooney has a knack for describing with precision, and also with lyricism, the textural experience of being a young person in the world, particularly an intelligent yet lonely young person. Her characters feel almost as strongly about big ideas as they do about their animal desires.

It’s a hard time to be young. Rooney understands and engages with the high cost of living, precarious jobs, stark social inequality and the climate crisis in her novels. Yet these ideas and political concerns never subsume the specific human characters, in specific Irish settings, that lie at the heart of each story. These are surely some of the intersecting reasons why her fiction has resonated so widely with the under 30s.

Intermezzo can be distinguished from Rooney’s previous two novels in its interrogation of intimate relationships that are perceived to be highly unconventional, and exploring how the characters negotiate that social tension.

Voices of generations past

Looking back a generation, Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, published in 2000 when she was in her early 20s, sparked a comparable reading fever, and prompted the same “voice of a generation” label.

Smith broke new ground back then with the fresh, funny and profound quality of her writing about the multicultural community of north-west London, particularly through her sparkling dialogue. Like Rooney’s fiction, Smith’s addresses pressing political issues, notably relating to race, class and migration, and yet those concerns never overpower the vivid individuality of her characters.

Like Rooney, Smith is a compelling public speaker, articulating her ideas with directness and wit. Her clear public “voice” surely helped the “voice of a generation” label to adhere. Yet Smith similarly rejected the idea that she had ever sought to represent any generation or group through her fiction. Conversely, she has denied even having a singular “voice” that might be linked to arbitrary aspects of her autobiography. Instead, she describes always having had multiple voices in her head, arguing that good fiction actually stems from productive self-doubt, combined with a sense of compassion and curiosity about other people and the world.

Turning the dial back further, into the 20th century, the so-called “voices of a generation” that come to mind are mostly white men. Brett Easton Ellis and JD Salinger, for instance, in the US; and Martin Amis and Ian McEwan in the UK.

It is heartening that fiction is no longer so dominated by male writers, especially when fiction readers remain predominantly female. And over the last two decades, it has been great to witness the championing of more diverse authors in the publishing industry: a shift which has been long overdue.

Still, as the real world appears to become increasingly divided through social media bubbles and extremist politics, it seems more important than ever to hold onto the vital role of fiction. Not as a loudspeaker for authorial “voices” that are assumed to represent neatly defined groups of people, but as a portal to imagined voices that reveal how unique yet interconnected we all are. Fiction is a force that can draw us together, regardless of our backgrounds, and increase our empathy for one another.

If a single writer can spark as many people as Rooney has to engage collectively in deep appreciation for their works of fiction, then it seems important to find a shorthand to capture that. If “the voice of a generation” is too exclusive, perhaps “a voice for a generation” is a more nuanced alternative.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

Ellen Wiles is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter.