Coming Home

Over a decade ago, I read and adored Colm Toibin's Brooklyn (2009). The story of a young woman, Eilis Lacey, who leaves her home in County Wexford, Ireland to travel to America is a delightful novel. In Brooklyn she meets an Italian-American plumber, Tony, and Eilis has to decide if she will stay with him or return home to her family. She makes a short trip home and is wooed by Jim, so now has to decide whether to settle down in Ireland, or go back to Tony in America. In 2015 a wonderful film was made of Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan in the lead role.

When I heard that Toibin was releasing a sequel, I preordered Long Island (2024) and read it over a weekend. Set in 1976, Eilis has been married to Tony for twenty years and has two teenage children. She is deeply entrenched in the tight-knit Fiorello family, who live together in neighbouring houses.  In the opening chapter Eilis' contentment is disrupted when a man comes to the door announcing his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and that he intends to leave the child with her when it is born. Eilis is stunned by the news of her husband's infidelity and is determined not to raise this child, while Tony's family see the unborn child as one of theirs, pressuring Eilis to change her mind. With the family closing ranks, Eilis needs time and space to consider her options, so she journeys home to Enniscorthy for her mother's eightieth birthday.

In Ireland the novel switches perspective to focus on Eilis and two other key characters. Eilis' childhood best friend Nancy stayed behind in their hometown, married and had children. Now widowed, Nancy runs a chip shop and has grown close with Jim, Eilis' old flame. When Eilis returns home she disrupts the rhythm of this sleepy town, and causes Jim and Nancy to behave in ways they would not have without her return. It is clear that Jim has never gotten over his love for Eilis, presenting Eilis with the potential of the life she could have chosen all those years ago.  Eilis also has to deal with her mother, who has been distant and seems to resent her daughter's choices.

What I loved about this sequel is how it captured these characters in their forties, older and wiser, with more complexities to consider when making decisions. Eilis is no longer the passive girl she once was - she now has a steely determination. Eilis is also a stranger in her home town - seen as having been Americanised - while she is also not wholly part of her new country. Having emigrated myself, I understand that feeling of being in between two hometowns, not wholly belonging. I also appreciated how Toibin kicked off this novel with the conundrum, front loading the crisis, unlike the slow burn of the previous book and he leaves plenty of room for things unsaid. 

Do you need to read Brooklyn to enjoy Long Island? No. I loaned both to a friend and she read the novels in reverse order and loved them. So you can read Long Island as a standalone book, but I think you will get more out of it if you read Brooklyn first. My review of Brooklyn can also be found on this blog.

It was great to be back in Toibin's Ireland, and Long Island reminded me of what a talented writer he is. I have other books of his on my shelf, which I will move higher up on my to-be-read pile.