Some of you may remember Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín’s book written in 2009 or the 2015 movie based on this book. It’s the story about a young woman, Eilis Lacey, who leaves her Irish village to seek opportunities in Brooklyn, New York.
In Tóibín’s newest book, Long Island, we meet Eilis Lacey again twenty years later. It’s 1976 and Eilis is married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers. They all live in neighbouring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives, and children and Tony’s parents. Eilis and Tony have two teenage children Rosella and Larry.
One day, a man visit’s Eilis and tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he wants nothing to do with it and will leave it on Eilis’ doorstep. Eilis finds it hard to deal with the situation. Tony does not tell Eilis what is going to happen, but his family has made arrangements that are kept from Eilis who has always felt a bit of an outsider in Tony’s large Italian family. She decides to use her mother’s eightieth birthday as a reason to travel to Ireland with her two children so that she doesn’t have to face the baby’s arrival.
Arriving back in Ireland, Eilis is now also an outsider in the village that she left twenty years ago. The narrative shifts between Eilis’ perspective and the perspectives of her old flame Jim Farrell and their mutual friend Nancy. All the characters are beautifully portrayed, and the Irish village is a vivid background against this story of love and secrets. I make a special mention about the portrayal of the teenage characters who are just nice, caring people which makes a nice change from the caricaturised anxious or selfish teenagers you often find in modern fiction.
Towards the end Eilis, Jim and Nancy are on a collision course and as a reader you’ll be sitting on the edge of your seat to see how the plot will be resolved.
Wilma
