Normal People writer Sally Rooney isn’t accepting options to turn her third book into a TV show. More on Rooney’s comments below.
Normal People, BBC Three and Hulu’s wildly popular adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel of the same name, felt like a major milestone in contemporary British television. The show’s approach to sex has been applauded and it also launched the careers of both Paul Mescal – due to appear in a small, independent arthouse film Gladiator II next – and Daisy Edgar-Jones, who most recently appeared in this summer’s weather-based thriller sequel, Twisters.
Despite the success of Normal People, Rooney has now said she’s not looking to option her third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, for a TV show.
“I felt like it was just time to take a break from that and let the book be its own thing for a while,” Rooney told The New York Times (here via Deadline). We’re taking solace in the fact that it doesn’t seem like a definitive no, but Rooney also noted that the world of TV was “not where I belonged.”
2020’s Normal People was followed by the less acclaimed adaptation of Conversations With Friends in 2022. While Rooney helped write the scripts for Normal People, which was directed by Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie McDonald, she was only on board as an executive producer for Conversations With Friends.
However, it seems that the experience of seeing Normal People being turned into a series was a positive, if an overwhelming one.
“The experience of working on [Normal People] had been, in so many ways, amazing — the team of people involved in it,” Rooney told The New York Times. “But it did also feel like a really big job. Then, when the show was broadcast, that felt like a lot in terms of the amount of discourse that it generated and the amount of media attention. I felt like, ‘OK, now I know that my books are where I belong, and that’s all that I want to be doing.’”
Rooney is getting ready to release her fourth novel, titled Intermezzo, this month. It follows two brothers who are struggling to manage their relationships while dealing with grief. If any more of Rooney’s novels do end up getting the TV treatment, we’ll be sure to let you know.
