I don't know what could top that': debut author Jem Calder on being discovered by Sally Rooney

"At the novel's opening, 23-year-old Joey meets 35-year-old Chuck at a bar. They sleep together, and commence what might be described as situationship hell: Joey falls hard, but Chuck isn't over his ex-fiancee. Joey seems to spend her life waiting for a text back. Like Reward System, the novel is pacy and astute; its 34-year-old author's bleak appraisal of life for young people today is right on the money."

"But in both books, the flinty cynicism is offset by a subterranean sense that something better is coming, and the denouements end up being oddly affirming. It helps, too, that Calder is funny. It soon becomes clear that Joey and Chuck are not singing from the same songsheet."

"In modern dating parlance, Chuck might be categorised as an avoidant: he ditched his fiancee, then regrets it; he likes being around Joey, but doesn't want to be with her. She pretty much wants a boyfriend, and he wants someone to take him out of himself, says Calder."

"Jem Calder's writing career had a fairytale start. Sally Rooney emailed him, impressed with a short story he'd submitted to the literary magazine she was editing soon after Conversations with Friends came out. It was the first story he'd ever completed. Calder was already a huge fan of Rooney's, so the whole thing was surreal, he tells me."

A writing career began with a first completed story that impressed Sally Rooney, later appearing in a 2022 collection of interconnected tales about sad young people in an unnamed city. A debut novel continues themes of modern love, millennial ennui, consumer culture, technology, and political and ecological doom. The story opens with a 23-year-old meeting a 35-year-old at a bar, leading to a relationship marked by emotional mismatch and waiting for messages. The younger partner falls hard while the older partner remains tied to an ex-fiancee and avoids commitment. Despite bleakness and cynicism, the narrative includes humor and suggests something better may arrive, with endings that feel oddly affirming.

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