Reader Score
83%
83% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 15 reviews on
"Stunning." --People * "Dazzling yet devastating...Tóibín is simply one of the world's best living literary writers." --The Boston Globe * "Momentous and hugely affecting." --The Wall Street Journal *
From the beloved, critically acclaimed, bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving novel featuring Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín's most popular work in twenty years.
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony's parents, a huge extended family. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis is now forty with two teenage children. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.
One day, when Tony is at work an Irishman comes to the door asking for Eilis by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis's doorstep. It is what Eilis does--and what she refuses to do--in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín's novel so riveting and suspenseful.
Long Island is a gorgeous story "about a woman thrashing against the constraints of fate" (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air). It is "a wonder, rich with yearning and regret" (Star Tribune, Minneapolis).
"In Colm Tóibín’s “Brooklyn” (2009), a young woman named Eilis Lacey left her home in Ireland for New York. This sequel revisits the themes of home and loss from a completely new perspective. Eilis is now in her 40s, the mother of two teenagers, and she learns of a dramatic secret her husband has been keeping."
"Tóibín is brilliant at tallying the weight of what goes unsaid between people, and at using quotidian situations to illuminate longing as a universal and often-inescapable aspect of the human condition. Tóibín’s mastery is on full display here."
"Tóibín’s genius is the quietness of his worlds...Tóibín’s genius is the quietness of his worlds."