Intermezzo by Sally Rooney Summary, Characters and Themes

Intermezzo is Sally Rooney’s portrait of two brothers whose lives tilt off balance after the death of their father.  Set between Dublin and rural Ireland, the novel follows Peter, a worn-down thirty-two-year-old barrister drifting through unstable relationships, and Ivan, a shy twenty-two-year-old chess prodigy searching for direction.

As they navigate grief, shaky romances, family tensions, and the old patterns that bind and harm them, their stories circle one another until they collide.  Rooney examines how people try to stay connected despite fear, pride, and unmet needs, and what it costs to grow into a version of oneself that others can love.

Summary

In Intermezzo, Peter and Ivan move through the same turbulent stretch of days after their father’s funeral, each trying to make sense of loss while stumbling through complicated relationships.  Their paths diverge, cross, and circle back as they attempt to understand who they are without the parent who once steadied the shape of their lives.

Peter, the older brother, begins adrift in Dublin after the funeral, visiting Naomi, a young woman with whom he has a fraught and undefined arrangement.  Their connection is physical, affectionate, and transactional, leaving both uneasy.

Naomi, living in a squat with friends, relies on him but also undermines him with sharp remarks and unpredictable behaviour.  Peter leaves her place unsettled and meets Sylvia, an ex-girlfriend with whom he shares long history and deep emotional dependence.

Their dinner is quiet and familiar; she offers him care that he struggles to accept.  When he asks if he can stay the night because he fears being alone, she agrees, showing the role she still plays in his life.

The focus turns to Ivan, who is preparing for a simultaneous exhibition in a rural arts centre.  He is nervous, polite, and self-contained as men from the local chess club set up tables.

Margaret, who works at the centre, mistakes him for someone younger and quickly apologizes, and her warmth unsettles him in a way he finds pleasant.  After he wins all ten games in the exhibition, they accompany others for a drink.

Their conversation carries a light current of attraction, and when the night ends, she drives him back to the cottage where he is staying.  They hesitate before agreeing to spend the night together, and their intimacy is marked by nerves, gentleness, and curiosity rather than confidence.

In the morning she worries about the consequences of their age difference and asks him not to mention what happened; he agrees, though they exchange numbers before parting.

Back in Dublin, Peter attempts to ground himself through routine but remains overwhelmed.  He calls Ivan, hoping for connection, but the conversation is stiff.

He then returns to court work, feeling drained by professional demands and private disarray.  His anxiety medication, endless walking through the city, and unfocused thoughts show how close he is to collapse.

Later, drinking heavily with colleagues, Peter tries to block out grief.  He ends the night at Naomi’s squat, where chaos, drunken banter, and jealousy flare.

When she steps away after confronting him about Sylvia, he feels humiliated by the atmosphere and leaves without warning.  He goes directly to Sylvia’s apartment, where they share tenderness and longing that has never fully faded.

They kiss, confess love, and sleep together despite the unresolved pain between them.

Meanwhile, Margaret reflects on her quieter life and her recent encounter with Ivan.  Lonely and cautious, she tells no one about him but replays the night in her mind.

When Ivan receives an unexpected call from her, they arrange to meet again, both shy and hopeful.  They spend another intimate evening at her cottage, speaking openly about family struggles, disappointment, and the comfort they find in each other.

Their second night together strengthens a bond neither expected.

The narrative continues shifting between the three as consequences build.  Peter and his mother, Christine, argue about Christmas plans, family memories, and Ivan’s reliability.

Their conversation reveals old wounds left by her leaving the family when the brothers were young.  Margaret, spending weekends with Ivan, enjoys domestic time with him but worries about the age gap and the risk of scandal.

Ivan opens up about his father’s illness, his frustrations with chess, and his regrets.  Their connection grows, though a moment of tension arises when she shows him a newspaper quoting Peter in a legal case.

Ivan reacts sharply, painting Peter as judgemental and domineering, and Margaret senses gaps in his story.

Ivan’s life shifts again when he travels to Skerries to check on the family dog after a message from Christine.  Finding the dog neglected, he reacts with fierce determination and takes it with him, though he has no plan for its care and fears disappointing Margaret.

Peter’s story ramps up when he finds Sylvia collapsed in her apartment, wracked with pain from her chronic condition.  Caring for her leads them back into closeness, and they make love, aware that their relationship carries both comfort and heartbreak.

But his connection to Naomi pulls at him, and messages from her jolt him into confusion about his divided loyalties.

Margaret begins to sense that their secrecy is becoming fragile.  A friend from the chess club remarks that he saw Ivan in town, making her fear that their relationship will become gossip.

She calls Ivan, admitting her anxiety, and he reveals that someone also noticed her at the workshop.  Their world begins to narrow under the pressure of outside eyes.

The turning point arrives when Peter and Ivan meet at their father’s house and a heated argument escalates into violence.  Ivan pushes Peter; Peter slaps him, throws him down, and nearly kicks him before stopping in horror.

Both are shattered afterward.  Peter seeks reassurance from their mother and breaks down at her house, confessing the fight.

Ivan, wounded physically and emotionally, calls Margaret and drives to her cottage for comfort, seeking escape from the grief and fear he cannot contain.

Peter sinks further, wandering through despair and thinking about ending his life.  When he returns home, he finds both Naomi and Sylvia waiting together, worried.

The shock causes him to faint, and they tend to him gently.  Naomi admits she loves him and stays the night, asking him to promise he will not harm himself.

The next morning Peter and Sylvia walk through Stephen’s Green, talking about their long attachment and the complicated space they still occupy in each other’s lives.  They forgive each other while accepting they cannot continue as before.

As Christmas nears, the story moves toward reconciliation.  Ivan competes in a tournament in Dublin, performing at his best and nearing a second title norm.

Peter goes to the hotel, unsure whether Ivan will even speak to him.  Outside the playing hall he encounters Margaret, and their awkward conversation confirms how entangled all their lives have become.

When Ivan emerges victorious, she fetches him, and at last the two brothers face one another.  Their reconciliation is raw and emotional, both apologizing for past failures, misunderstandings, and the grief that has pushed them apart.

Ivan invites Peter to spend Christmas with him and Margaret, telling him to bring whoever he wishes.  Peter accepts with relief.

The novel ends with Peter walking through the city feeling exposed yet hopeful, thinking of everyone he loves—Ivan, Margaret, Naomi, Sylvia, and Christine.  For the first time in months he imagines a future in which he continues trying, imperfectly but sincerely, to remain part of the lives that matter to him.

Characters

Peter

Peter emerges as a deeply conflicted man in his early thirties, caught between emotional fragility and a desperate need for connection.  His grief over his father’s death exposes longstanding vulnerabilities—his anxiety, his fear of purposelessness, and his inability to maintain stable relationships.

Throughout Intermezzo, he navigates a web of entanglements: a transactional, unstable relationship with Naomi; an emotionally intimate but painful bond with Sylvia; and a strained, guilt-laden connection with his younger brother, Ivan.  Peter’s identity is split between the competent, articulate barrister others see and the inwardly collapsing man he hides.

His self-recriminations, especially after the physical fight with Ivan, reveal his terror of becoming cruel or unlovable.  Despite this darkness, Peter retains a sincere longing for goodness—seen in moments of tenderness with Sylvia, in his concern for Ivan, and in his halting attempts to repair familial bonds.

Peter’s journey becomes one of self-confrontation: learning to accept imperfection in himself, in others, and in the life that still moves forward despite regret.

Ivan

Ivan, at twenty-two, is portrayed as gifted, sensitive, and profoundly disoriented by grief.  As a chess prodigy, he has lived a life defined by quiet pressure and expectation, but beneath his composure lies a deep well of loneliness and emotional volatility.

His father’s death unravels his sense of structure, leaving him oscillating between moral clarity and crippling uncertainty.  Ivan’s relationship with Margaret brings out his innocence and his yearning for safety; he gravitates toward her empathy and groundedness, yet often feels unworthy or childish in comparison.

His dynamic with Peter is fraught with love, resentment, and unmet emotional needs.  The violent confrontation between them becomes a breaking point, forcing Ivan to examine how grief distorts him and how desperately he still wants his brother’s affection.

His decisions—taking the neglected dog from his mother’s house, seeking reconciliation with Peter, and reaching out to Margaret despite fear—reveal a young man searching for moral direction and a sense of belonging.  Ivan’s emotional openness, even when it overwhelms him, becomes his defining strength.

Margaret

Margaret stands at the crossroads of desire, responsibility, and self-reinvention.  In her late thirties, separated from her husband and living a quiet life in a rural community, she initially appears composed and self-sufficient.

Yet her relationship with Ivan exposes the vulnerability beneath this exterior.  She is drawn to him not only through physical desire but through the unexpected tenderness and emotional honesty he offers—qualities she has learned to live without.

At the same time, Margaret struggles with societal judgment, moral anxiety about the age gap, and the fear of upending her carefully rebuilt life.  Her longing for companionship clashes with her instinct for self-protection.

Even as she deeply cares for Ivan, she remains conscious of how others—friends, colleagues, and especially her ex-husband—might interpret their bond.  Margaret’s internal life is marked by self-questioning: whether she is healing or sabotaging herself, whether love justifies risk, and whether desire can coexist with dignity.

Her final place in the story, beside Ivan and tentatively within the broader network of his family, suggests a step toward acceptance of a love that unsettles her but also gives her life renewed meaning.

Naomi

Naomi represents the chaotic, youthful counterpoint to Peter’s world-weariness.  Living in a squat with friends and flirting with instability, she embodies an environment where affection, dependence, and defiance blur together.

Her relationship with Peter is fraught—sexual, emotional, transactional, and steeped in insecurity on both sides.  Naomi oscillates between tenderness and anger, vulnerability and bravado; she guards herself fiercely yet seeks reassurance constantly.

She envies Sylvia, sensing Peter’s emotional attachment to his ex, and fears being abandoned or replaced.  Naomi’s life is shaped by precarity—financial, emotional, and social—and Peter’s intermittent presence both comforts and harms her.

Despite her youth and impulsiveness, she is capable of deep feeling, seen in moments when she softens toward Peter’s grief or panics over his disappearance.  By the end of Intermezzo, Naomi emerges as someone who loves fiercely yet chaotically, representing a form of connection that is messy but deeply human.

Sylvia

Sylvia embodies warmth, steadiness, and emotional intelligence, contrasting strongly with the turbulence surrounding Peter and Naomi.  Having once shared a deep and loving relationship with Peter, she remains entwined with him through habit, affection, and unresolved grief over their past.

Her chronic pain shapes her sense of self—limiting her physically, making intimacy fraught, and contributing to the gentle reserve she carries.  Sylvia is patient with Peter, often providing emotional caretaking, even when it opens old wounds for both of them.

Their connection is tender but shadowed by the knowledge that they cannot return to who they once were.  The love they share is real but no longer sustainable, and their conversations—often honest to the point of rawness—highlight the difficulty of releasing someone you still care for.

Her eventual acceptance that Peter must choose a different life, one that includes Naomi, reveals her quiet strength and her ability to let go with grace, even through heartbreak.

Christine

Christine, the mother of Peter and Ivan, embodies a complicated blend of maternal guilt, defensiveness, and affection.  Having left the family when Ivan was young, she inhabits a space of perpetual negotiation—attempting to maintain closeness with her sons while also justifying the life she built apart from them.

Her conversations with Peter often escalate into accusations and counter-accusations, revealing the deep-rooted resentments that have shaped their family.  With Ivan, she tries to be supportive but struggles to understand his emotional temperament, often misreading his sensitivities.

Christine’s attempt to rehome the family dog symbolizes how disconnected she can be from what her sons value most deeply.  Yet she also shows genuine care, as when she comforts Peter after his fight with Ivan or checks on Ivan at Peter’s request.

She is a mother who has made mistakes and knows it, but who continues reaching—awkwardly and imperfectly—toward her children.

Frank

Frank, Christine’s partner, functions more as a shadow presence whose past interactions with Peter and Ivan still shape their emotional landscapes.  Though he does not appear directly in the narrative, his household was once a site of discomfort and alienation for the brothers.

Peter remembers feeling out of place among Frank’s children, sensing a subtle hierarchy that left him and Ivan on the margins.  For Ivan, Frank represents another adult authority whose approval he could never fully secure.

Frank’s influence remains indirect but potent, symbolizing the fractures created by divorce and blended families, and the complicated loyalties children must navigate when parents move on.

Ricky

Ricky, Margaret’s ex-husband, represents the ghost of the life she left behind.  His presence lingers in her anxieties: she worries what he would think of her affair with Ivan, whether he would judge her, or whether word might reach him through mutual acquaintances.

Ricky symbolizes convention, adulthood, and the structured world Margaret built before desire disrupted her routines.  Although he is no longer in her life, the internal pressure he exerts shows how deeply Margaret once conformed to expectations—and how radically she has deviated from them by forming a relationship with Ivan.

Anna

Anna, Margaret’s close friend, provides a lens into Margaret’s social world and the constraints surrounding her decisions.  Anna’s companionship is rooted in warmth and familiarity, yet Margaret often withholds the truth about Ivan, fearing Anna’s judgment.

Their friendship highlights the gap between Margaret’s outwardly stable life and the secret emotional turbulence she experiences.  Anna’s presence underscores Margaret’s loneliness and her need for a confidante, even as Margaret hesitates to reveal the most transformative part of her life.

Ollie

Ollie, a member of the chess club, functions as a minor but significant character in exposing the risks in Ivan and Margaret’s hidden relationship.  His casual remark about seeing Ivan in town triggers Margaret’s fear that their secret is unraveling.

Ollie inadvertently represents the watchful eyes of small communities, where chance encounters can quickly become gossip.  Although he acts without malice, his presence deepens the tension around secrecy and judgment.

Alexei (the dog)

Alexei symbolizes continuity, loyalty, and the emotional legacy of the brothers’ father.  Neglected in their mother’s home, the dog becomes a moral touchstone for Ivan, prompting him to reclaim Alexei despite having no stable place to keep him.

Alexei embodies the brothers’ shared past, their grief, and their differing ways of coping.  For Ivan, caring for the dog becomes an act of love, a refusal to let the memory of their father be mishandled or forgotten.

Themes

Grief and the Disruption of Meaning

Grief in Intermezzo unsettles every character’s inner world, reshaping how they move through ordinary life and how they interpret their past.  Rather than appearing as a single emotional state, it alters perception, judgment, and self-understanding.

For Peter, his father’s death strips away the fragile structure he relies on to manage his sense of inadequacy.  His routines, his professional identity, and even the ways he relates to Naomi and Sylvia feel hollowed out.

He tries to continue functioning—teaching, standing in court, drinking with colleagues—yet each action reflects how his internal stability has eroded.  The death leaves him without an anchor, forcing him to confront parts of himself he has ignored: resentment toward his mother, guilt about his relationship with Naomi, and the emptiness of his carefully cultivated ambitions.

Grief exposes fissures but also reveals how deeply he longs for intimacy and steadiness, even when he sabotages the relationships that offer these things.

For Ivan, grief operates differently.  It distorts the boundaries of reality, making familiar places feel alien, and disrupting his intuitive grasp of himself as a capable adult.

Although he is outwardly successful—a rising chess talent—his father’s death disorients him, making him susceptible to impulsive decisions, from taking back the neglected dog to clinging tightly to Margaret as a source of understanding.  His emotional volatility stems not from immaturity alone but from the sense that the world no longer behaves predictably.

Margaret experiences grief in a quieter register, less about the father’s death and more about the way desire and loneliness unsettle her established life.  She mourns the stable version of herself she once trusted.

Across all three storylines, grief functions as a destabilizing force that compels the characters to question their beliefs about responsibility, love, adulthood, and the future.  It is not a process of resolution but an ongoing destabilization that reorders what they value and how they see themselves.

Intimacy, Need, and Power

The novel presents intimacy as something shaped by need, dependency, and the uneven distribution of emotional strength.  Peter and Naomi’s relationship demonstrates how closeness becomes tangled with humiliation, financial imbalance, and conflicting expectations.

Their encounters oscillate between tenderness and disdain, revealing how intimacy often arises from vulnerability rather than compatibility.  Peter feels protective toward Naomi yet also seeks from her a kind of adoration she cannot consistently provide.

Naomi, in turn, alternates between craving the care he offers and resenting the authority he implicitly holds.  Their connection illustrates how desire and dependence entangle people in relationships they do not fully understand and cannot easily leave.

Peter and Sylvia represent another mode of intimacy—one shaped by shared history, mutual comprehension, and unresolved longing.  Their nights together are filled with gentleness, yet shadowed by pain, disability, and the mutual recognition that they cannot recreate what they once had.

Their relationship shows intimacy as a space where people confront the truth about themselves more clearly than anywhere else: their limits, their regrets, their capacity to wound and to forgive.

Ivan and Margaret’s relationship approaches intimacy from a different direction.  Age difference, social expectations, and secrecy create a dynamic where each is acutely aware of the power they hold over the other.

Ivan seeks reassurance, admiration, and a sense of being seen; Margaret seeks vitality, connection, and escape from loneliness.  Their physical closeness becomes a way of managing fears about purpose, aging, and the need to feel valued.

The relationship exposes how intimacy blurs ethical boundaries and complicates self-image.  Across all three relationships, intimacy is portrayed not as a stable bond but as an ongoing negotiation between desire and fear, autonomy and dependence, the past and the present.

Family Conflict and the Fragility of Brotherhood

Peter and Ivan’s relationship forms one of the emotional pillars of the novel, shaped by childhood hierarchies, adult insecurities, and unresolved resentments.  Their father’s death intensifies every underlying tension, bringing buried conflicts to the surface.

Peter’s attempts to protect and guide Ivan often appear to Ivan as condescension.  Ivan’s desire for independence and recognition often appears to Peter as irresponsibility.

Their violent confrontation is not an isolated moment but the culmination of years of misunderstanding and emotional misalignment.  The fight reveals how easily love between siblings can turn into hostility when neither feels truly understood by the other.

Yet their reconciliation shows that the bond between them remains stronger than their conflict.  When they finally speak honestly—about failures, grief, envy, and affection—the emotional weight they share becomes a source of connection rather than antagonism.

The novel portrays brotherhood as something marked by volatility, shaped by the shifting balance of dependence and rivalry.  Family conflict also extends to their mother, Christine, whose relationship with both sons remains charged with guilt, accusation, and longing for approval.

Her choices—leaving their father, building a new household—continue to reverberate through their adult lives.  Family relationships in the novel highlight how love is often imperfect, clouded by blame, but ultimately central to the characters’ efforts to rebuild a sense of purpose.

Loneliness and the Search for Belonging

Loneliness in Intermezzo is not simply the absence of companionship; it is a deep sensation of being misaligned with the world.  Each of the main characters experiences it in ways shaped by their personal history.

Peter’s loneliness persists even when he is surrounded by people.  His job, his routines, and his social environment do not ease his sense of isolation because he cannot articulate what he needs from others, nor allow himself to be fully seen.

Naomi’s chaotic living situation contrasts with the emotional instability she carries, and her loneliness manifests in her refusal to depend on anyone for too long.  Sylvia’s chronic pain creates a barrier between her and the kind of romantic life she wishes she could sustain, leaving her caught between what she desires and what her body allows.

Margaret’s loneliness is rooted in adulthood—divorce, failed expectations, and the disorienting feeling that life has drifted away from the version she once imagined.  Ivan’s loneliness is more existential.

Despite his talent and outward sociability, he feels cut off from others because he rarely believes he is being understood on his own terms.  The dog, Alexei, becomes a symbol of his fear of being discarded or mishandled.

The relationships that form across the novel originate from attempts to alleviate loneliness; characters seek one another not only for love or sex but for the reassurance that someone else recognizes their inner struggles.  The novel portrays the search for belonging as an ongoing, imperfect process—one that requires accepting that others are equally flawed and uncertain.

Desire, Shame, and the Complexities of Adult Identity

The novel treats desire not as a simple expression of attraction but as a force that reshapes identity and evokes shame, defensiveness, and self-doubt.  Peter’s desire for Naomi is entangled with embarrassment about their age difference, their unequal circumstances, and the transactional elements of their relationship.

He wants her, yet he also wants to be the kind of person who does not want someone like her for the reasons he does.  This tension exposes the discrepancy between his self-image and the reality of his emotional needs.

His renewed connection with Sylvia complicates matters further, revealing how desire persists in forms that are no longer practical or socially appropriate.

Margaret’s desire for Ivan challenges her understanding of herself as a responsible adult with established moral boundaries.  She oscillates between pleasure and self-reproach, continually questioning whether she is harming him or whether she is allowed to accept what he freely offers.

Ivan’s desire is mixed with a wish to feel competent, attractive, and capable of forming genuine connection despite his youth and turmoil.  The secrecy surrounding their affair heightens both the thrill and the shame, creating a tension that neither can easily resolve.

Through these intertwined desires, the novel examines the complexities of adult identity.  It suggests that people often construct their moral frameworks around the lives they imagine for themselves, rather than the lives they actually live.

When desire disrupts those frameworks, characters are forced to confront uncomfortable truths about what they want and why they want it.  Identity becomes something unstable, shaped as much by private longing as by public behavior.

Responsibility, Guilt, and the Struggle to Act Ethically

Responsibility is a recurring ethical challenge for nearly every character.  Peter feels responsible for Ivan, for Naomi, for Sylvia, and even for his mother, yet fails repeatedly to act in ways that match his sense of duty.

His guilt accumulates: guilt over ignoring Naomi’s eviction notice, guilt over hurting Ivan, guilt over his ambivalence toward Sylvia, guilt over his father’s death and the unresolved tensions surrounding it.  Instead of guiding him toward clarity, guilt often paralyzes him, making him retreat into avoidance or impulsive decisions.

Ivan grapples with responsibility in more immediate ways.  His decision to take back Alexei shows his instinct toward moral action, yet his lack of practical planning exposes how emotional impulses can conflict with responsible behavior.

Margaret confronts a different set of responsibilities: to her job, her reputation, and her own self-respect.  Her struggle lies in reconciling her relationship with Ivan with the judgment she fears from her community and family.

The novel suggests that ethical action is rarely straightforward.  It emerges from competing loyalties, conflicting desires, and imperfect information.

Responsibility becomes something the characters grow into rather than something they possess inherently.

Hope, Renewal, and the Possibility of Connection

Despite the despair that permeates the narrative, the novel offers a quiet but persistent sense of hope.  It appears through small gestures: Sylvia caring for Peter when he collapses, Margaret calling Ivan after days of uncertainty, Peter deciding to keep going after contemplating suicide, Ivan inviting his brother to Christmas dinner.

These moments show that hope is not found in sweeping transformations but in the willingness to reach toward others even after failure and conflict.

The reconciliation between Peter and Ivan stands as a central moment of renewal.  Their honesty with each other—painful, overdue, and filled with vulnerability—creates a foundation for healing that seemed impossible earlier.

Similarly, the tentative stability that emerges between Peter, Sylvia, and Naomi suggests that relationships can survive complexity when people accept the ambiguity of their own feelings.  Margaret’s willingness to continue seeing Ivan, despite fear and social pressure, indicates her desire to reclaim parts of herself she had set aside.

The novel does not promise that these connections will last or resolve all conflict.  Instead, it suggests that hope resides in the act of trying—continuing to love people even when uncertain, continuing to seek meaning even when life feels unsteady.

Renewal is not an endpoint but a commitment to remain open to possibility.