Brooklyn: A Novel

by Colm Toibin (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2009

  $8.76

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $4.61

  It is Enniscorthy in the south-east 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 - days at the till in a large department store, night classes in Brooklyn College and Friday evenings on the dance floor of the parish hall - 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, but not to the constrictions of her old life, but to new possibilities which conflict deeply with the life she has left behind in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is a tender story of departure and return of great love and loss, and of the terrible choice between personal freedom and duty. In the character of Eilis Lacey Colm Toibin has created a remarkable heroine and in Brooklyn a novel of devastating emotional power.

• New

  Paperback
  2010

  $13.18

  Colm Toibin's Brooklyn is a devastating story of love, loss and one woman's terrible choice between duty and personal freedom. It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go, leaving behind her family and her home for the first time. Arriving in a crowded lodging house in Brooklyn, Eilis can only be reminded of what she has sacrificed. She is far from home - and homesick. And just as she takes tentative steps towards friendship, and perhaps something more, Eilis receives news which sends her back to Ireland. There she will be confronted by a terrible dilemma - a devastating choice between duty and one great love. With this elating and humane novel, Colm Toibin has produced a masterwork. (Sunday Times). The most compelling and moving portrait of a young woman I have read in a long time. (Zoe Heller Guardian, Books of the Year). A work of such skill, understatement and sly jewelled merriment could haunt your life. (Ali Smith TLS, Books of the Year).