Her novels are noted for their erotic descriptions but phrases like “deep screw” and “kiss on the pink” have another meaning for Sally Rooney. The Irish author became a snooker fan during the pandemic and writes in The New York Review of Books about the hours she now spends watching old matches between maestros of the baize, especially Ronnie O’Sullivan.
“It started with clickbait — ‘Top 10 craziest shots’ — but very quickly I needed to see the entire frame, uncut,” she said. Rooney is fascinated by snooker as an “intellectual puzzle” and loves the unhurried way in which it is played as well as what she calls “aesthetic excess”. There is, she added, another reason for her interest.
O’Sullivan describes his life as being
