Long Island is a sequel that was long time coming. Author Colm Tóibín published Brooklyn in 2009, and it was 15 years before he revisited the book’s much-loved characters. But I think it was worth the wait, even if the ending makes me wonder if there’s a trilogy in the works!
The book picks up 20 years after Brooklyn, so it’s now 1976, and Eilis is living on Long Island. I loved the beginning, which kicks off with a pretty seismic event in her marriage to Tony. That’s after a slight misdirect that leads the reader to assume the Irish man who is looking for her is from her home town of Enniscorthy, County Wexford.
But the events that unfold do lead Eilis to go back to Ireland. Twenty years after she returned from a visit there to marry Tony and, by default, his entire Italian family. The way Tóibín depicts the suffocating life Eilis lives in the Long Island suburb that Tony’s family have made their home is excellent.
Not to say that she doesn’t have a pretty good life. Their home is lovely and very modern, and they have two great kids. But the revelation that Eilis finds horrifying causes the wider family to close ranks. Eventually she decides it’s time to take a break from Long Island life. Potentially a permanent one.
The contrast between the world Eilis has become used to in America and life in Enniscorthy is clearly drawn. Her mother’s house has barely changed, and she’s resistant to the ‘mod cons’ Eilis wants to buy for her. More importantly, though, are the people of Enniscorthy. Jim Farrell, the man she almost stayed for on her last visit, is still there and still unmarried. Her former best friend Nancy is there too and now a widow. Therein lie some complications.
Once back in Ireland, Long Island switches between the perspectives of those three main characters, which I found switched my sympathies. Albeit I wasn’t sure in the end that any of them were especially nice people, each driven by their own personal and quite selfish motivations.
But I enjoyed revisiting the characters I’d got to know many years before in Brooklyn. And I suspect I’ll find it hard to resist finding out what happens next if Tóibín does have another sequel in the works.
I bought Long Island from the local Oxfam shop where I’m a book volunteer. You can also buy books from Oxfam online, or you might find a copy in your local library. For more book reviews, visit the Books section of my blog.
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