Conversations with Friends is a 2017 novel by Sally Rooney. The story features two Trinity College Dublin students, a B-list actor, and writer and photographer in a Relationship Revolving Door Love Dodecahedron.
The book has been adapted for television as a Hulu Original. The cast includes Alison Oliver, Sasha Lane, Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke.
Tropes present in Conversations with Friends include:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: The first time Nick sleeps with Frances is when his wife Melissa is in London for work.
- Age-Gap Romance: Frances, a 21-year-old university student, begins an affair with Nick, who is 32.
- The Alcoholic: Frances's father has drunk since she was a teenager. In the years before the novel starts, it became worse, paired with other mental illness.
- Amicable Exes: Although Frances and Bobbi are broken up they still care deeply for each other and even work together performing poetry.
- Apathetic Student: Frances is quite dilligent in her studies, but she claims multiple times that she doesn't have any plans for her future life.
- Frances: I had no plans as to my future financial sustainability; I never wanted to earn money for doing anything.
- Broken Pedestal: Bobbi and to a lesser degree Frances hold Melissa on a very high pedestal, which crumbles more and more during the course of the novel. Also Bobbi seems to feel this way about Frances later on.
- Double Standard: Bobbi openly admits to Frances that she kissed Melissa, but once she learns that Frances has an affair with Nick, she is jealous. Frances herself is even worse; she casually tells Nick about a Tinder hookup she has had, but gets jealous of Melissa - his wife.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Exagerrated. While in a delirial state, Frances writes a story that revolves around her feelings and views for Bobbi, which she sells to a newspaper. Melissa, who Frances betrayed before with her affair to Nick, sends the text to Bobbi, who then ends her friendship to Frances.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble:
- Sanguine: Bobbi, who instantly clicks with everyone, draws every conversation around herself, but is also very talkative and sometimes discloses personal information in inappropriate circumstances.
- Choleric: Melissa, who is quite extroverted as well, a complete workaholic and very bossy, especially towards her husband.
- Melancholic: Frances, a very introvert and detail-oriented person, leaning towards melancholy and mood-swings.
- Phlegmatic: Nick, who is at times displayed as submissive to self-abandonment towards his wife Melissa, mostly very shy and passive.
- Interclass Friendship: Bobbi comes from a modest family and Frances from a poor one; in contrast, Melissa and Nick have both grown up in wealth.
- Lazy Husband: Played for drama. Owing to their depression and burnout disorder, Nick was at times completely apathetic and barely moved anymore at home. In one incident, his wife Melissa found him on the sofa watching some soft porn TV show, and it's implied that he was merely watching it because he couldn't bother to reach out for the remote.
- Polyamory: The central theme of the book, in various shades. The only combination of the four main characters that does not occur is Bobbi with Nick, as the former is not bisexual.
- Safety in Indifference: Frances, out of fear of getting hurt, acts towards Nick as if their affair doesn't mean anything to her, going as far as casually telling him about a Tinder hookup she had had. It's only when he tells her how much that hurt that she starts to openly show some emotion.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Nick had one with his teacher in college. He makes it very clear that he was not the one in charge in this relationship.
