Beautiful World, Where Are You: A Novel

"Saying that, after the massive international success of Normal People and the phenomenon that was the subsequent television adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, one senses something of a backlash building against the Irish writer. The Atlantic offered a helpful roundup : critics have pointed to her books’ political posturing—one writer dubbing it “sanctimony literature”—and argued that her characters are too thin, too beautiful and too ironic for their own good, and not quite bisexual enough. Personally, I feel these criticisms to be slightly unfair, given that Rooney has never positioned herself as a ‘voice of a generation’ (and indeed, often insists on her own dullness and insignificance when interviewed—albeit not wholly believably). And I find it a little sad that Rooney’s books are more often discussed as an ultimate expression of millennial culture, than the smart, entertaining, thought-provoking, tear-jerking novels that they are. Needless to say, I pre-ordered my own copy months ago. Out Sept 7. Other big hitters bringing out new books in fall 2021 include fellow Irish novelist Colm Tóibín, whose The Magician is a vivid fictional biography of Thomas Mann, the Nobel laureate and author of The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice (23 Sept); Lauren Groff, who found huge success in 2015 with her two-headed story of a marriage Fates and Furies , and now returns with Matrix , about a nun exiled from the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine (Sept 7); and Karl Ove Knausgård, who steps away from autofiction with The Morning Star , a traditional novel about strange celestial happenings, which has received critical acclaim in his native Norway (Sept 28 in the US; Sept 30 in the UK)."