Mr Salary {short story}

I've not been shy, in my reviews of Sally Rooney's first two novels, in expressing my disdain at the hype this writer gets. Her work is well-written chick-lit but chick-lit nonetheless, with none of the grace or insight you would expect of legitimate literature. It's atonal, superficial mood-wrangling that appeals to a certain cadre of readers who want their unexamined worldview reflected back at them and don't want to work for it either.

But I thought perhaps a short story would be different. Perhaps in this form, Rooney wouldn't have opportunity to indulge her psychoanalytic twiddling and quest for victimhood. Perhaps she wouldn't rely on tired raunch and modish non-punctuation to con and titillate her gullible readership. Perhaps she show more wouldn't b— "Not for the first time during these phone calls, I slipped my hand between my legs and Nathan pretended not to notice" (pg. 17).

Sigh. I guess not. Mr. Salary is more of the same – shallow, redundant middle-class wittering, peppered with sentimental clichés (dead mum, dad dying of cancer) and edgy, attention-seeking nihilism ("Would you grieve if I died? I asked him" (pg. 12)). Like all Rooney stories, it follows a performatively energy-sapped bore whose goal is the ultimate goal of every Rooney protagonist: to fuck a handsome older guy who has money. The "hero with a thousand faces", this ain't.

I think the maddening thing in her stories is that her characters never realise how safe they are: they indulge their every whim (apart from those they deny themselves in their bouts of dramatic ennui) and then present their self-inflicted, skin-deep scars as wounds of Christ. The only mercy is that this short story ends before the author can deploy phase two of her well-worn (and bafflingly successful) playbook: the thirst-slaked protagonist blaming the man (and "patriarchy") for her own lethargy, character flaws and life choices. show less

‘’It was in my nature to absorb large volumes of information during times of distress, like I could master the distress through intellectual dominance.’’

A young woman returns to Dublin from Boston. Her father is seriously ill and her heart is in a critical condition because she has been in love with her best friend for years.

If you thought that unrequited love is difficult, try an on-again - off-again relationship…

‘’My love for him felt so total and so annihilating that it was often impossible for me to see him clearly at all. If he left my line of sight for more than a few seconds, I couldn’t even remember what his face looked like.’’

Can Love and its troubles be contained within 20 pages?

You bet they can. This is a show more melancholic, tender, sad story of that kind of love that can’t seem to find its way home, of doubts and disappointments. Of the impact our family has on our deepest feelings. Of being in love and fighting for it. Of having the courage to admit it.

This is Dublin. Beautiful and vibrant and Christmasy. And this is Love.

‘’We were predictable to each other, like two halves of the same brain. Outside the restaurant window it had started to sleet, and under the orange street lights, the wet flakes looked like punctuation marks.

I just want to know you love me.’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

Listened to in audio, then read a few months later.

Like her other work, this is a story of changing relationships, observations and reflections. Sukie comes back to Dublin from the US to visit her dying father in hospital and also to see Nathan. Is he a friend, replacement family figure or something else? I had forgotten that the story takes place around Christmas but I think that's because the festive season isn't really central to the story.

I enjoy Sally Rooney's stories about ambiguous relationships and all the confusions that come with them, and liked this deftly observed short work.

Even though only forty plus page long, this little short story is exactly like all other Sally Rooney books. It precedes the novels, which will continue to echo the dynamics between the characters of this little book.

This is the first short story by Sally Rooney I’ve read and I liked it. It’s similar to her full length novels in the style and manner.

As the first chapter of a book it would have kept me reading.

Simply far too short