If you’ve spent any time on BookTok or lurking in the aisles of a local indie bookstore, you already know the vibe. Sally Rooney isn't just an author; she's a mood. People get weirdly defensive about her. Or they hate her. There’s rarely a middle ground. But before she became the "Salinger for the Snapchat generation" or whatever the critics are calling her this week, she was honing that specific, piercing style in shorter forms. Honestly, looking back at two stories Sally Rooney published early on—specifically Mr. Salary and Color and Light—is like finding the blueprint for every awkward, devastating conversation in Normal People.
These aren't just throwaway drafts. They are clinical dissections of how people fail to say what they actually mean.
The Power of Mr. Salary
Mr. Salary is probably the one you've heard of. It was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award back in 2017. It follows Sukie, a young woman living with an older man named Nathan in Dublin. They aren't "together," but they are everything to each other. It’s messy. It’s that specific Rooney brand of power imbalance where the person with the money or the age or the status thinks they have the upper hand, but the emotional reality is way more tangled.
You see it in the way they talk. Or don't talk.
Sukie is waiting for her father to die. That’s the backdrop. But the real meat of the story is her obsession with Nathan. He’s "Mr. Salary." He represents a kind of sterile, comfortable adulthood that she’s both attracted to and repulsed by. Rooney does this thing—and she does it better than almost anyone writing today—where she describes a mundane physical act, like sitting on a sofa or drinking a glass of water, and makes it feel like a high-stakes standoff.
Why Sukie matters
Most writers would make Sukie a victim. Rooney doesn't do that. Sukie is sharp. She’s observant. She knows exactly how pathetic her devotion to Nathan looks from the outside, and she leans into it anyway. It’s that "self-aware but unable to change" trope that makes Rooney’s characters so frustratingly human. You want to shake them. You want to tell them to just get a therapist and move on. But you can't stop reading because the prose is so clean it feels like a cold shower.
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Color and Light: A Shift in Perspective
Then you have Color and Light, which appeared in The New Yorker in 2019. This one feels different. It’s set in a seaside town. It’s got this hazy, atmospheric quality that deviates a bit from the sharp urban interiors of her novels. We follow Aidan, a guy who works in a hotel and meets a woman named Pauline.
Pauline is older, wealthy, and seemingly bored.
The story is about a heatwave. It’s about the way light hits a room. But mostly, it’s about the projection of desire. Aidan doesn't really know Pauline; he just knows the version of her he’s built up in his head during their brief, strange encounters. It’s a classic Rooney setup: two people from different social classes colliding and realizing they have no common language for their feelings.
The Dublin vs. Rural Dynamic
A lot of people forget that Rooney is incredibly attuned to Irish class dynamics. In two stories Sally Rooney uses to bridge her novels, the setting is never accidental. In Color and Light, the rural setting emphasizes Aidan's isolation. He’s stuck. Pauline is a visitor, someone who can leave whenever the weather turns or the novelty wears off. This transactional nature of relationships is a recurring theme that she eventually perfected in Conversations with Friends.
Honestly, Pauline is kind of a prototype for the more "difficult" women in Rooney's later work. She isn't there to be liked. She’s there to be a catalyst for Aidan’s own internal crisis.
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The "Rooney Style" and Why it Works
Some people call it "flat affect" writing. There are no quotation marks. If you aren't used to it, it can be jarring. You’re just reading a stream of dialogue and internal thought, and it’s up to you to figure out who is saying what. It forces you to pay attention. It’s active reading.
- Minimalist descriptions.
- Hyper-fixation on social etiquette.
- Emails and texts as plot devices.
- The crushing weight of unspoken expectations.
It’s easy to mock. People do it all the time on Twitter. "She ate a piece of toast. It was cold. He looked at her. He didn't say anything." But in the context of a story like Mr. Salary, that simplicity is devastating. It strips away the fluff and leaves you with the raw nerves of the characters.
Misconceptions About These Stories
One big mistake people make is thinking these stories are "romances." They aren't. They are autopsies of intimacy. If you go into Mr. Salary expecting a cute "older man/younger woman" trope, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s bleak. It’s about the ways we use other people to fill holes in our own lives.
Another misconception? That nothing happens. This is the biggest complaint about Rooney’s work in general. "It’s just people talking in rooms!" Well, yeah. But the way they talk is the action. A shift in tone during a conversation about a dead father is as explosive as a car chase in a Rooney story. If you aren't tuned into the subtext, you'll miss the entire plot.
How to Read Sally Rooney if You’re a Skeptic
If you’ve tried her novels and felt they were too long or too "hyped," start with these short stories. They are bite-sized entry points into her world. They show her range. They show that she can do more than just write about Trinity College students having existential crises (though she does that very well).
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- Read Mr. Salary first. It’s the most "Rooney" of her short work. It’s got the Dublin setting and the intense, claustrophobic relationship.
- Move to Color and Light. Notice the difference in tone. Notice how she handles the male perspective. It’s a bit more observational and a bit less frantic.
- Ignore the hype. Seriously. Don't worry about whether she's the voice of a generation. Just read the sentences.
The reality is that Sally Rooney is a technician. She’s interested in the mechanics of how we interact. These stories are her laboratory. You can see her testing out ideas about Marxism, feminism, and the utility of the modern novel while still making you care about whether Sukie and Nathan ever actually get their act together.
Actionable Insights for Readers and Writers
If you're a writer, study how she handles transitions. She doesn't use clunky "then he went to the store" sentences. She cuts. She moves between scenes with a cinematic quality that keeps the momentum going even when the characters are literally just sitting still.
For readers, the best way to approach these stories is to look for what isn't being said. The silence in a Sally Rooney story is just as important as the dialogue. When a character stops talking, or when they change the subject abruptly, that’s where the real story is happening.
Check out the original publications if you can. The Stinging Fly is where a lot of this started. It’s a legendary Irish literary magazine, and Rooney actually ended up editing it for a while. Seeing her work in that context—amongst her peers—really helps clarify why she stands out. She isn't just a trend; she’s part of a long tradition of Irish writers who are obsessed with the nuances of domestic life and social hierarchy.
Next time someone tells you Rooney is "overrated," point them to these stories. It's hard to argue with the craft on display in Mr. Salary. Whether you like the characters or not, the precision of the prose is undeniable. It’s not about being "relatable" in a cheap way; it’s about being honest about how difficult it is to truly know another person.
For those looking to dive deeper into the world of contemporary Irish fiction, checking out the archives of The New Yorker or Granta will yield a wealth of similar short-form explorations by Rooney's contemporaries. Exploring these earlier works provides a much clearer picture of the evolution from a promising short-story writer to a global literary phenomenon.