Intermezzo review: is this a gambit too far for Sally Rooney?

Take, for example, the chess showcase in a tired Clogherkeen arts club, where Ivan shares a brief look of mutual awkwardness with Margaret, the no less exhausted chatelaine of this small town cultural hub. A quick glance, a smile, a pint of lemonade: soon Ivan finds himself irrevocably in love with an older woman unable to get a divorce from her alcoholic husband. Soon, he…