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Book Cover for: Brooklyn, Colm Toibin

Brooklyn

Colm Toibin

Reader Score

77%

77% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Great

Based on 8 reviews on

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The New York Times Best Seller
2016 The New York Times Best Seller
Colm Tóibín's New York Times bestselling novel--now an acclaimed film starring Saoirse Ronan and Jim Broadbent nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture--is "a moving, deeply satisfying read" (Entertainment Weekly) about a young Irish immigrant in Brooklyn in the early 1950s.

"One of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary literature" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.

Author "Colm Tóibín...is his generation's most gifted writer of love's complicated, contradictory power" (Los Angeles Times). "Written with mesmerizing power and skill" (The Boston Globe), Brooklyn is a "triumph...One of those magically quiet novels that sneak up on readers and capture their imaginations" (USA TODAY).

Book Details

  • Publisher: Scribner Book Company
  • Publish Date: Mar 2nd, 2010
  • Pages: 272
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.90in - 5.30in - 0.90in - 0.55lb
  • EAN: 9781439148952
  • Categories: LiteraryFamily Life - SiblingsHistorical - General

About the Author

Toibin, Colm: - Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah's Book Club Pick; The Magician, winner of The Writers' Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the 2022-2024 Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. He was shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize. He was also awarded the Bodley Medal, the Würth Prize for European Literature, and the Prix Femina spécial for his body of work.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

Praise for Brooklyn

"Written with mesmerizing power and skill." --Richard Eder, Boston Globe

"Colm Tóibín ... [is] his generation's most gifted writer of love's complicated, contradictory power." --Floyd Skoot, Los Angeles Times

"Tóibín creates suspense out of the simplest emotions: fear, love and, most poignantly, regret." --Time

"Eilis' universal struggles with matters of the heart ... make this novel ... a moving, deeply satisfying read." --Entertainment Weekly

"[A] gem of a novel... profound." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR

"Quietly majestic." --Claire Messud, The New York Review of Books

"[A] masterly tale... There is not a sentence or a thought out of place.... His finest fiction to date." --Bernard O'Donoghue, Irish Times

"[A] triumph... One of those magically quiet novels that sneak up on readers and capture their imaginations." --USA Today