From Ireland to New York and Back: Brooklyn and Long Island
by Colm Tóibín
Tóibín wrote Brooklyn in 2009 and Long Island in 2024. We, abiding by the buzz, read both (Jennifer read them back-to-back; Lara had a teeny-tiny reprieve between them). In Brooklyn, Irish girl Eilis Lacey crosses the ocean to try to forge out a life in Brooklyn, following World War Two. Working on Fulton Street, rooming with other Irish women, living the Catholic/Brooklyn/Irish life, she ends up falling for Tony, an Italian kid. Then–like, right after love–she goes back to Ireland for a family emergency. She has a little sexless fling with Jim, a guy at home. But, ultimately, she decides her life is in New York. In Long Island, Eilis is married to Tony, in her forties, and something crazy happens: she goes back to Ireland for a little visit. Who knows what will happen when she gets there?
Jennifer: Um, we need to decide if we’re including spoilers.
Lara: Since we are reviewing them together, I think we have to. I realize that may limit readership of our review, but we have to. We just must.
Jennifer: So, friends, this is your big warning:
SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Seriously stop reading here unless you’ve read both books or you’re some
kind of animal who can still enjoy reading a book that’s been spoiled.
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Lara: Okay, now that we’ve cleared that up… Before we dive in…A rapid-fire timeline of events:
In Brooklyn, we meet Eilis Lacey – a young Irish woman (eighteen-years-old?) whose mother and sister believe she should move to America to have the best chance at a good life. Before heading to America, she’s at a community dance where she meets Jim Farrell – a potential dance partner/suitor who shows NO INTEREST in her. She ferries to Long Island and, after meeting a nice Italian boy, Tony, they date and get married. Her sister Rose, who was her best friend, dies. Eilis travels back to Ireland to see her mother and pay her respects and, while there, meets up with Jim Farrell again. Now a pub owner, he’s pretty impressed with Eilis and they have a brief (nonphysical) fling. The book ends with Eilis returning to America and, we assume, to Tony, but we don’t know. She leaves without saying goodbye to Jim.
Long Island starts roughly twenty years later. Eilis and Tony are married with two teenage children (Rosella and Larry). Both work. Tony is a plumber. The book opens with a knock on the door. Eilis is met by a man claiming to be the husband of a woman Tony has impregnated.
“‘He even did a bit more than the estimate. Indeed, he came back regularly when he knew the woman of the house would be there when I would not. And his plumbing is so good that she is to have a baby in August.’
He stood back and smiled broadly at her expression of disbelief.
‘That’s right. That’s why I’m here. And I can tell you for a fact that I am not the father. It had nothing to do with me. But I am married to the woman who is having this baby and if anyone thinks I am keeping an Italian plumber’s brat in my house and have my own children believe that it came into the world as decently as they did, they can have another think.’
He pointed a finger at her again.
‘So as soon as this little bastard is born, I am transporting it here. And if you are not at home, then I will hand it to that other woman. And if there’s no one at all in any of the houses you people own, I’ll leave it right here on your doorstep.’”
HOW’S THAT FOR AN OPENING?
Jennifer: Right? How are you feeling about this?
Lara: Well, I have a lot of feelings about this! Let’s go back to Brooklyn. I was not a fan of Mr. Jim Farrell. AT. ALL. I was pro-Tony all the way. And when Eilis returned to pay her respects to her sister and hooked up with Jim, I was not happy–but ultimately hopeful that she would return to Tony when going back to America. But by the time I got to page four of Long Island, Tony was dead to me.
All that said, DAMN, this guy can write.
Jennifer: I guess that my feelings are pretty complicated. As mentioned earlier, I read these back-to-back–and that was because I wanted to. Colm Tóibín wrote two very readable books. Actually, we both read them quickly. The writing is good!
That said, I think I read so furiously because I was chasing something. Like, I was dying for VOLITION. In these books, I did become easily vested in the characters–and then these characters seem to let life happen to them. Not once. Not twice. But all the time. What makes Eilis return to New York in Brooklyn? HER MOTHER. Does Tony take some kind of stand on behalf of his unborn child or his wife of a couple decades? NO. HE WAITS. When Eilis goes back to Ireland, does she take decisive action? NO. She gets involved with Jim again. Does Jim tell her he’s engaged to Nancy? NO. Does anyone make a decision? Well, NANCY DECIDES. Nancy was the only active character; everyone else is frightfully passive. I think that ultimately colors my opinion of the books. Though I loved reading them.
Lara: Super passive. Now, this is a blanket statement, but I do think the Irish, as a people, are known for having a pleasant, non-confrontational disposition. That said, I think Eilis made her feelings on raising her husband’s child born out of an extra-marital affair very clear – she wasn’t going to do it – and he and his family (who were supportive of Eilis and Tony raising the child) would need to come up with another plan.
Jennifer: One thing I’m wondering is how would we feel if there were only Brooklyn. I don’t know about you, but the book wasn’t really on my radar until Long Island came out–and we read them both, knowing we would read both. Did this affect our impressions of the books?
Lara: Brooklyn can certainly stand on its own. It’s a quiet and contemplative story about a woman embarking on her life. When read with Long Island, we get a richer and more complex portrait of Eilis and her life, glimpses into the joys she’s experienced and smacked in the face with a life-altering incident at the hands of her husband and his LOYAL AF family who doesn’t take Eilis’s position into account at all.
Jennifer: I was constantly chasing decisiveness.
Also, these people have no sense of fidelity. I think I say this in other contexts a lot. Relationships are not easy; I think individuals can tolerate certain things, while other behaviors are just intolerable. Maybe one person can stick it out in a relationship fraught by addiction. Maybe someone else is out the door. I have to admit that I hate infidelity. So, I sorta lose respect for all of them. Tony cheats. Eilis cheats. Jim cheats. Gross.
Lara: I would agree that the cheating is gross, too. I think if they would just talk through things, they might be able to cheat less–but I am not sure. And, despite the grossness, I could totally see how all this could happen. By avoiding one thing, by pushing it away, you are pulling something else toward you. You are seeking answers and connection in the wrong ways and, frankly, it happens a lot.
Jennifer: I will say that I think Tóibín paints a great picture of the plight of the émigré. In Brooklyn, Eilis adjusts to her new life outside of Ireland:
“She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything. The rooms in the house on Friary Street belonged to her, she thought; when she moved in them she was really there. In the town, if she walked to the shop or to the Vocational School, the air, the light, the ground, it was all solid and part of her, even if she met no one familiar. Nothing here was part of her. It was false, empty, she thought. She closed her eyes and tried to think, as she had done so many times in her life, of something she was looking forward to, but there was nothing. Not the slightest thing. Not even Sunday. Nothing maybe except sleep, and she was not even certain she was looking forward to sleep. In any case, she could not sleep yet, since it was not yet nine o’clock. There was nothing she could do. It was as though she had been locked away.”
Maybe this is a book about home or homelessness.
Lara: You might be onto something here. I agree there’s a theme about what home means, where it is, what it is. And despite the drama these characters create and experience, he’s a master at crafting a quietly propulsive narrative, much the way another favorite of mine is: Kent Haruf.
Jennifer: I also liked the way Tóibín plays around with the differences between Italians and the Irish. Stereotypes? True cultural attributes? I don’t think of the Irish as passive shopkeepers, though. . .
What else have you been reading?
Lara: Kind of a lot! Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (B); Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski (B); The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley (B+ and great on audio); Wayward by Emilia Hart (B and great on audio); All Fours by Miranda July (Not Rated due to kinda graphic content); The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton (A+). What about you?
Jennifer: Since Amor Towles, I’ve actually read quite a bit. I think I might highlight Gina Frangello’s Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. It’ll be a special read for anyone with a case of Ferrante Fever. I loved it. I also read Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, who also wrote The Bee Sting. Here’s our killer review. Sadly, I can’t say I loved it. I can say that parts of it were really great.
Next Time!
Join us as we talk about Bear by Julia Phillips.
This book’s cover is STUNNING!
