Author(s): Colm Tóibín, Colm Toibin

Novel | New York | Ireland | Read our reviews!

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.

It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country.

One day, 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 will leave it with her.

Eilis has choices to make, and what she chooses to do after this shattering news make this one of Toibin's most riveting and emotional novels to date.

A follow-up to Brooklyn.

STELLA'S REVIEW:
An unexpected knock on the door brings an unwelcome stranger conveying news that Eilis can hardly believe. It’s 1976 and Eilis Lacey lives in Long Island with her husband, Tony, and their two teenage children, surrounded by his Italian family. Eilis has found a way to belong in this forthright family and has even eked out a little independence with a part-time office job. Falling into middle age, her marriage is comfortable and predictable. The news that arrives rocks her world to the core and unsettles her, reviving prejudices and doubts in her code of conduct and her expectations of others. Tony has fathered a child, not hers, and the baby when it is born is going to be deposited on the father and his family. Eilis won’t, unsurprisingly, have a bar of it, and decides she needs to get away. Her mother is turning eighty and this is a good enough reason as any to return to Ireland. As Tony, and particularly his mother, make plans for the forthcoming baby, Eilis finds herself cut out of any discussion or decision-making. Returning to her home village of Enniscorthy is hardly the escape she imagined. Nothing has changed. It is as stultifying as ever. The same preoccupations keep the rumour mill turning and the same prejudices about social class and morality persist. It may be 1970 everywhere else but here it could be the 1950s. Judgement, pettiness, and grudges circle under the everyday pleasantries.  Yet despite this, it is here that Eilis will face her greatest challenge — being true to her feelings. Her love for Jim Farrell has been dormant all those years. When we leave Eilis in Brooklyn, she is running away, and in Long Island she is escaping again. Nothing is straightforward. Tóibín has a gift for capturing intimate relationships — their nuances, inconsistencies, and delusions. Under the seemingly benign runs a thread of tension. There is the obvious complication of Nancy, Eilis's former best friend, and her dreams of a better life out of the chip shop with the willing publican Jim. And then the problem of Tony and the children — can Eilis make a new life for herself in America? As the story progresses Eilis, Jim, and Nancy are on a collision course that can not be avoided. Yet Long Island is not merely driven by the captivating plot, it is a commentary on expectation and illusion, where everyone has their private dream, but no one is honest to each other nor themselves. Where social mores hold behaviour in check even in the most intimate moments. Brilliantly written with a deft touch, it is only at the end that the breath you have been holding will be exhaled, but only briefly.

Review:
You don't have to have read Brooklyn to enjoy the many pleasures of Long Island. It is a masterful novel full of longing and regret. A tale of lovers reconnecting, of compromise, and the settling that can come later in life. Intensely moving and yet full of restraint, I was sad to turn the final page -- Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
His best yet . . . It reads like the tensest of stage plays, but with all the pleasures of interiority that the novel form allows. I haven't wanted to hug this many characters in a while -- Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times and The Happy Couple
Heartbreak, wistfulness, cracking dialogue . . . This is Toibin at his best -- Robbie Millen * The Times *
A masterful and uproariously entertaining book, glittering with all of Toibin's intelligence and humane wit, as compelling, passionate and quietly enigmatic as its unforgettable protagonist Eilis Lacey -- Colin Barrett, author of Wild Houses

Praise for Brooklyn:
The most compelling and moving portrait of a young woman I have read in a long time -- Zoe Heller, Guardian, Books of the Year, on Brooklyn
A work of such skill, understatement and sly jewelled merriment could haunt your life -- Ali Smith, TLS, Books of the Year, on Brooklyn
Suffused with humane depth, funny, affecting, deftly plotted . . . a novel of magnificent accomplishment -- Peter Kemp, Sunday Times, Novel of the Year, on Brooklyn
With this elating and humane novel, Colm Toibin has produced a masterwork * Sunday Times, on Brooklyn