Conversations with Friends

The book was completed whilst Rooney was still studying to write and complete her master's degree in American literature.[1] The book was subject to a seven-party auction for the publishing rights.[1] Rights were eventually sold in 12 countries.[2]

The novel was published in June 2017 by Faber and Faber.[1] It was nominated for the 2018 Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize,[3] and the 2018 Folio Prize.[4]

The book details the relationships among four people – Frances (the narrator), Bobbi (her best friend), and Melissa and Nick (a married couple).[5]

Conversations with Friends received positive reviews.[6] Overall, critics enjoyed Rooney's prose, clarity, and sharp characters. Writing for The New Yorker, Alexandra Schwartz praises Rooney, noting that, "she writes with a rare, thrilling confidence, in a lucid and exacting style uncluttered with the sort of steroidal imagery and strobe flashes of figurative language that so many dutifully literary novelists employ."[7] Schwartz continues, "one wonderful aspect of Rooney’s consistently wonderful novel is the fierce clarity with which she examines the self-delusion that so often festers alongside presumed self-knowledge."[7] The Guardian similarly praised the author, noting how, "Rooney writes so well of the condition of being a young, gifted but self-destructive woman, both the mentality and physicality of it. She is alert to the invisible bars imprisoning the apparently free."[8] Reviewing for Slate, Katy Waldman described how "Sally Rooney is a planter of small surprises, sowing them like landmines. They relate to behavior and psychology—characters zigging when you expect them to zag, from passivity to sudden aggression and back."[9] Waldman further applauds the novel, noting that "Rooney herself is acute and sensitive—she may have pinned these fragile creatures to a board, but her eye is not cruel. Bobbi, Frances, Nick, and Melissa excel at endearing banter and hesitant, vulnerable disclosure. They are all thrillingly sharp, hyperverbal."[9]