Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo has become this year’s fastest-selling title in Ireland. Several bookshops opened early to anticipate the demand and the novel, her fourth, sold 11,885 copies in the Republic during its first five days on sale. It was also a bestseller in the UK, shifting 44,233 copies.
Its nearest rival in the Irish bestseller lists last week was Graham Norton’s Frankie, which sold 1,836 copies, according to data released on Tuesday by Nielsen, which covers 70 per cent of all retail sales in Ireland and 90 per cent in the UK.
The novel, which has been critically acclaimed both at home and abroad, revolves around the relationship of two brothers, Peter and Ivan, who are mourning the death of their father, and the women they love.
Ireland’s previous fastest-selling title this year was Long Island, Colm Tóibín’s sequel to his bestseller Brooklyn, which sold 5,956 copies the week it came out in May. It has continued to sell strongly, racking up more than 30,000 copies to date.
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Beautiful World, Where Are You, Rooney’s previous novel, did even better in its first week on sale in September 2021, selling 12,635 in the Republic and 47,562 copies in the UK. Remarkably, her most popular title, Normal People, sold only 1,254 copies in the Republic the week it came out in August 2018 and 4,925 copies in the UK. Her debut, Conversations with Friends, sold just 65 copies in Ireland in its first week on sale in May 2017, and 208 in the UK.
Stellar reviews, word of mouth and successful television adaptations of her first two novels transformed her work’s fortunes, however. Her British and Irish publisher Faber & Faber alone have sold more than six million copies of Rooney’s books.
Prophet Song, Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize-winning novel about a family’s struggle to survive in a totalitarian Ireland, was the bestselling book in Ireland last year.
Lynch’s novel sold 45,501 copies, pipping Liz Nugent’s Strange Sally Diamond, winner of Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, which sold 42,510. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, the family saga which won Irish Book of the Year as well as being shortlisted for the Booker Prize, sold 42,072 copies.
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