To say the last 18 months has been a whirlwind for novelist Sally Rooney is an understatement.  The 27-year-old has had two books publishing in the past year and a half and has earned herself a place on the Man Booker long list for novel number two, Normal People.  "It's been a massive blur," Sally told Sean Rocks on Arena.  "I haven't quite got my head around what's happening."

The books were written and published in remarkably quick succession, with Sally completing a draft of her first novel, Conversations with Friends, in only three or four months.  She explained that the characters for book two were brewing for a while and took the form of a number of short stories when she was taking a break from writing her novel.  Over time, Sally developed a relationship with the protagonists of Normal People, Connell and Marianne, who both grew up in the same rural town, although in many other ways, they came from very different worlds.  The novel follows the history of their relationship from their final year in school to completing their degrees at Trinity College Dublin.

Marianne and Connell have something of a "tumultuous history" said Sally, both coming from very different backgrounds and types of family.

"In school, Connell and Marianne don't really acknowledge each other.  Marianne is… a bit of a loner…  She doesn't want to be involved in the social world of her school at all and Connell is the quite the opposite.  He's very well liked, he gets on with his classmates well so there's nothing happening between them in school at all but as you say his mother is Marianne's family cleaner so he sometimes comes around in the car to pick up his mother so he knows Marianne outside school and that sort of allowed them the space to develop some kind of dynamic away from the watchful eyes of their classmates." 

Sean described the characters as "gorgeous" and applauded the relationship that builds gradually between the two.  Sally said this sense of a slow build was what she was aiming for.

"If you meet these characters and straight away they have a great connection… in a way it would be hard to believe it or to feel the truth of it, so for me it was all about beginning from that, like, I can't look at this person, I can't interact with this person at all and building up from that sort of embarrassment and awkwardness, into something that felt truthful."

 Click here to listen to Sally's interview in full on Arena.