A sense of a cozy literary community could be felt, rare for a big city like Boston.
On Tuesday, September 24, Trident Booksellers held a release party for Sally Rooney’s fourth novel, Intermezzo. The event took place in Trident’s new event space, The Stacks, featuring a dining area, decorative displays of books, and music to make the space feel more intimate.
While the regular book was included in the event’s ticket pricing of $32, signed copies of Intermezzo were handed out to the first 40 attendees. Pins, pencils, and other merchandise were also available at the door.
Intermezzo is lauded as Rooney’s most moving novel yet and has averaged a 4.3/5 on Goodreads at the time of writing. A quick synopsis of the novel is as follows:
“Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common…For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.”
After settling into the new Trident event space and ordering dinner and drinks (including the event’s signature drink, Rooney’s Irish Milkshake), visitors were welcomed in with discussion questions such as, “What drew you into Sally Rooney’s novels?” and “How do her characters resonate with your own lives?” While these discussion questions were solid jumping-off points, they didn’t provide much substance, and conversations quickly diverted to personal and irrelevant topics. This, mixed with low microphone levels, made the discussion facilitators become drowned out by background noise. Otherwise, the questions were fun and on-theme for the book release.
Trivia began soon after the discussion ended, with teams of two and three playing to win a variety of Intermezzo merch, including Baggu bags, sticky notes, and bandanas. There were three rounds of trivia: 1) Sally Rooney, 2) chess (included due to the prominence of the game in the book, as one of the main character’s hyperfixations), and 3) we give you the quotes, you give us the Sally Rooney book. These all made for a fun and competitive time, albeit the quote section was perhaps a little too hard for its own good (but it’s all in good fun, so it’s okay!). Some teams had Sally Rooney-themed names (i.e. The Normal People), while others had names based on inside jokes. A sense of community was felt in the room that can be hard to find in such a big, seemingly isolating, city like Boston.
As 21 questions of engaging and competitive trivia came to a close, so did the event. The top five teams (or ten people) collected their prizes, some folks stayed around to exchange contact information and speak with the event facilitators, and more hung around to browse the bookstore. Trident Booksellers’ Sally Rooney Intermezzo Release Party was a fun, feminine, and friendly atmospheric event. While this exact event won’t happen again, Trident is constantly throwing similar low-energy parties for this same demographic, including a Halloween Themed Paint & Sip, trivia, and speed-dating all taking place later this month.