Long Island

I’m not sure why this Oprah’s Book Club pick is named Long Island since most of the crucial scenes take place in Ireland, the homeland of forty-three-year-old Eilis Lacey. I read this book because it is the sequel to Toibin’s previous book, Brooklyn, which was made into a movie starring Saoirse Ronan.

I often wonder what happens to couples after their romantic and enthralling beginnings, and life between two cultures interests me. It shows the differences that develop between two people from different cultures who fall in love and try to make a life together. In this second half of… show more.

First of all, I think Colm Toibin is a brilliant writer. But I also was eager to follow up on the path of Ellis Lacey, an Irish immigrant to New York, first introduced to us in Toibin's novel, Brooklyn. Her struggle for autonomy and striking out on her own is a theme close to my heart, the main thrust of my novel, Becoming Mariella, about a young Sicilian woman who defies tradition and leaves home.
Also, I appreciate how he seems to understand the heart of women.

For anyone who loved 'Brooklyn', this is the long-awaited sequel. We join Eilis Lacey who left Ireland to live in New York, on her return journey to her Irish village to visit her mother on her 80th birthday. As if it were that easy! As someone who has lived in America for the past 5 years (although not in New York sadly) this book struck so many chords. There is so much emotion here. Familial loyalties, nostalgia, longing for a past lover and all the various machinations attached. Read Booklyn first and then this one. I loved it.

It was excellent revisiting these characters.

Long Island by Colm Tóibín, published in 2024, is a compelling sequel to his acclaimed novel Brooklyn. Set over two decades after Eilis Lacey's initial journey to America, the story delves into her return to Ireland amidst personal turmoil.

Eilis, now in her forties and living in Long Island with her husband Tony and their teenage children, faces a crisis when she learns of Tony's infidelity and the impending birth of his child with another woman. This revelation forces Eilis to confront her past and the unresolved emotions tied to her homeland.

The novel explores themes of loneliness, the pressures… show more.