Title: Mr Salary
Author: Sally Rooney
Publisher: Faber and Faber
ISBN: 9780571351954
Genre: Short Story
Pages: 48
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars
March 2019 has been a slow reading month. This is only the 4th read and I know I will also catch up. It’s okay to take it easy sometimes. It is just fine to read at the pace you wish to. So I then decided to read the Faber Stories (there are 20 of them, I own about 13), one by one, and this is the first that I read today.
And just like that perspective shifts. And just like that Sally Rooney writes a short story that has the capacity to pierce and make you wonder about circumstances of falling in love, of the nature of love itself. .
Mr Salary is one of the 20 mini books published by Faber Books as a part of their celebrating 90 years of publishing. It is a story of Sukie and Nathan, of what brings them together and what keeps them apart. Read it. There is nothing Rooney can’t write about. It is a story about love that is different (might sound cliched but please do read it) and how it sustains itself over time. Also, how the story gets its name is kind of funny and delightful to read about.
Rooney’s characters are so layered and complex, even in a short story. That’s the writing prowess and the world she conjures. It almost feels that you are a part of it all for those 40 pages or so. Her writing is sparse but is most effective. I know it is a short story and perhaps doesn’t exactly count as a “book read”. However, it most certainly has the potential to become a full-fledged novel. Read it for the prose. Read it for the setting (Dublin). Read it for how she has the ability to make sense of (sometimes) some emotions.
Of Books and Reading 