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Brooklyn (Hardcover)

by Colm Toibin (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 32.99
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Product Description

Review

“Tóibín’s genius is that he makes it impossible for us to walk away.”
— The New Yorker


Product Description

It is Enniscorthy in the southeast of Ireland in the early 1950s. Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving her family and country, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady’s intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation.

Slowly, however, the pain of parting is buried beneath the rhythms of her new life — until she begins to realize that she has found a sort of happiness. As she falls in love, news comes from home that forces her back to Enniscorthy, not to the constrictions of her old life, but to new possibilities which conflict deeply with the life she has left behind in Brooklyn.

In the quiet character of Eilis Lacey, Colm Tóibín has created one of fiction’s most memorable heroines and in Brooklyn, a luminous novel of devastating power. Tóibín demonstrates once again his astonishing range and that he is a true master of nuanced prose, emotional depth, and narrative virtuosity.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars "The sadness won't last so we'll do what we can for you", April 19 2009
By Michael Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Set in Ireland and Brooklyn in the 1950's this rather sad, melancholy novel traces the gradual maturing of Eilis Lacey who leaves her homeland and her beloved home for a time to work in America, leaving her mother, her sister Rose, and her friends. Living in the small village of Enniscorthy and still young and full of hopes and dreams, Eilis finds work at a shop, but the kindly Father Flood, the family pastor instills in Eilis a sense of adventure even as she bears the knowing gossip of her friends and the constant pressure from her mother to cross the Atlantic to seek her fortune. With Eilis's older bothers long gone to England for work, she grows older, always in the shadow of Rose, an avid golf player who seems to become ever more glamorous over the years. Elias is proud of her sister, of how she takes care of her appearance and whom she mixes with, so its not surprising that Eilis heeds her advice and tries to bury all of the fear and dread that she's going to lose her world in Ireland forever. She was looking forward to America and leaving home for the first time. America might be foreign but there was also "an almost compensating glamour attached to it."

Throughout her journey, Eilis is surrounded by characters who seem to have the best of intentions. Luckily, the kindly blond haired Georgina helps Eilis on the stormy voyage when she's wracked with sea sickness as she vomits up all of her boiled mutton amidst all of the shuddering and lunging as the huge ocean liner moves forward. Upon her arrival on Brooklyn, Ellis cannot believe the extent of her naiveté as she's forced to put up with the muddy humidity of summer and the freezing winters with the biting wind, carrying ice. There are also the days working on the shop floor of Bartocci's which seem to be the longest in her life. She battles crippling terrible weight of homesickness as Enniscorthy comes to her in flashing pictures and the life she had lost and would never have again. Meanwhile, she's stuck in Brooklyn with no friends and family. Even the other girls who lodge at Mrs. Kehoe's boarding house with their daily talk of changing fashions can do little to assuage the sadness that seems to melt into and float on the surface, constantly distracting her.

In this elegant novel, Eilis's life in Brooklyn is defined the social property of the time and also the constraints of religion, and her status as a girl of quality. Forced to follow the rigid rules of Mrs. Kehoe, her Mass on Sundays and the disapproving talk of boyfriends, Eilis just can't escape the feeling that Mrs. Kehoe is taking advantage and ultimately judging her, especially when she meets Tony, a friendly Italian American. It doesn't take long for her to begin to slip into Tony's world and that of his family and the apartment were he lives with his parents and his three brothers. After a sudden courtship - the trips to Manhattan to see films, to the beach at Coney Island, and to baseball games - Eilis is tumbled into self-doubt when she realizes that all Tony wants to do is to marry her while she harbors grand plans of a career as a bookkeeper. When disaster strikes and there's terrible news from home, Eilis is plunged into a new dilemma, forced to confront the dark confusion of her decisions. It is ironically Jim Farrell's clear blue eyes, not Tony's, that linger on her with an interest that is unmistakable. Soon enough, Eilis finds everything that has happened in Brooklyn almost dissolving, no longer richly present in her life, and she sees all three of them - Tony, Jim, her mother as figures she can only damage.


This novel speaks to a disparate and questionable long-distance love and the challenges and rewards of those who brave such a test. Eilis and Tony are quite different, but she eventually falls for his easy and relaxed manner, and that of his affable family, a fact that adds an added weight to their romance as it progresses from friendship to flirtation and then to a serious commitment as Tony weaves his inevitable web around his muse. But as the climax of the novel suggests, Eilis' questionable obligation to Tony comes at a terrible price, the moral confines of the church and society eventually making Eilis's duty and commitment almost impossible to bear. Meanwhile, this gentle but rather uneventful novel plods along, the narrative lacking tension even though the author's specialty is the obvious growth of Eilis as a woman and as an independent spirit who is forced to face the ramifications of her life choices. Mike Leonard April 09.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Staggering in its simplicity., Aug 26 2009
By Schmadrian - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
As a reader, when I read a novel, especially when I'm 'reviewing' one, in the end, my primary question is: 'Am I glad I spent the time on it?'

As a writer, when I read a novel (or a screenplay, or article, or any other piece of writing), especially when I'm 'reviewing' one, in the end, my primary question is: 'Would I like to have written it?'

In the case of Tóibín's 'Brooklyn', the answers would be, in order, 'Yes', and 'No'.

'Brooklyn' was such a strange animal to me. I write as I speak, as I converse, as I express myself in most ways: pithiness rarely rules the day. So to have such a poignant tale told with such reserve, by way of a narrative that's not that far off point-form...this style of writing is not my default choice. However, perhaps because of its -to me, maybe just to me- unusual qualities in this regard, it found a special place in my heart. Its quirkiness was endearing...and I do not mean that in a patronizing way in the least. (For the record, my heroes are John Irving, Pat Conroy, Mark Helprin and Ann-Marie MacDonald. One of my favourite stretches within a novel would be the first forty-or-so pages of Don Delillo's 'Underworld'. Now *that* is writing.) Yes, I'd be curious to read a 'filled-out' version of this 269-page threadbare novel. Yes, there were times I longed for 'more'. But its charms...and its effectiveness...were beyond question for me. So yes, I'm glad I spent the time reading it, I enjoyed it a ton.

But I could never see writing it. If I tried to accomplish even a short story cut from the same cloth, it would, no doubt, be terribly affected, and if successful, more an exercise in determination than creation. This is no knock against Tóibín; he is a master storyteller, in full command of his talents, and clearly told the tale precisely as he'd wanted to.

At the end, I was squirming, very uncomfortable with what was bound to happen as the story ran out to its conclusion. And backtracking to what had led there, I had to applaud the author's efforts, his construction, and the care with which he related what he related to the reader.

Having said all that, I'm rather amazed that it was 'twice short-listed for the Booker Prize'. It's good, sometimes great, but not a piece I would say was worthy of that degree of praise. It is an accomplishment, entertaining, thoughtful. But not something that will be remembered with any deep sentiment ten or twenty years from now.

(Personal rating: 8/10)
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