Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. These days, the Irish author, Sally Rooney, is a straight-up star, as big of a star as can come from the literary fiction world. But way back when, in those hazy, crazy days of 2019, she was out promoting the book that would become her breakout hit, Normal People.

If you haven't read it or seen the Hulu TV show adaptation, it follows Connell and Mary Ann,

two young people in love and in lust, but they're at an age when it's hard to figure yourself out,

much less someone else.

And this interview from 2019 between Rooney and NPR's Rachel Martin is an interesting glimpse at how Rooney was thinking about class, masculinity, and the social strata,

themes she'd spend an entire career exploring.

That's ahead.

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working to restore a balanced relationship between people and planet.

The Schmidt Family Foundation is part of the philanthropic organizations and initiatives created and funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt to work toward a healthy, resilient, secure world

for all. On the web at theshmit.org.

Hey, it's Andrew again. Real quick, just to set it up. Rune's novel features two people who,

for whatever reason, just can't make it work. But they keep trying anyway. Here's Rooney.

The opening phase of their relationship when they're in secondary school is for various

reasons kept a secret. And even though that secrecy is in a way a little bit oppressive for both

of them, I think it's also in a strange way kind of liberating because it means that their

relationship is kept apart from the social world and kept protected from it in a strange way, kind of liberating, because it means that their relationship is kept apart from

the social world and kept protected from it, in a sense. And they find new ways to express

themselves and to kind of carve out an identity or a sense of self just for one other person.

You know, they're at that age where they're really trying to figure out who they are

going to be as adults. You know, they're 17, 18, 19. They don't really know themselves very well yet.

And so, yeah, I think their intimacy is a really formative part of how they develop an identity in

those years. They are each suffering in some way. Is that what continues to draw them to one

...