Brooklyn
Speaking of Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín is one of those author’s that I’ve always meant to get around to reading. His novel The Master was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Tóibín was also shortlisted for the Booker for an earlier novel The Blackwater Lightship. Generally speaking, a friend of the Booker Prize is a friend of mine. With a new novel called Brooklyn garnering rave reviews and a trip to that same borough in the works, it seemed time to get to know Mr. Tóibín
Brooklyn begins in Ireland. Eilis lives with her widowed mother and older sister in Enniscorthy (Tóibín’s birth place). Her older brothers have moved to England to make a living, and life is hard for three women who are living on the book keeping work her sister brings in and the occasional money sent home by her brothers. Before Eilis is even aware of the machinations of her family, a plan has been hatched to send Eilis to America under the watchful eye of an Irish priest living in Brooklyn.
Eilis soon finds herself on a ship bound for NYC, and let’s all thank goodness that we don’t have to make the trip that way anymore. Needless to say, Brooklyn in the 1950s bears little resemblance to a small picturesque town on the coast of Ireland. Eilis is determined to make a go of it and soon finds herself employed and taking night courses at Brooklyn College towards a degree in accounting. Before too long, she has carved out a small life for herself. She has made of herself what her family had hoped.
However, Eilis is called home for a family emergency at almost the exact moment that she has begun to feel at home in Brooklyn. The situation in Enniscorthy has changed considerably since Eilis first set sail to America. The choice between the home she grew up in Ireland and the home she made for herself in Brooklyn drive the remainder of the novel. The complications inherent in either choice are not inconsequential. And it’s probably best to leave it at that.
Tóibín, as the awards would suggest, is a master story teller. His depictions of 1950s Enniscorthy and Brooklyn drop the reader into fully realized worlds. Characters are richly developed and sympathetically drawn. If you are not fully emotionally invested in Eilis decision at the end of this novel, you have a cold, black heart. I’ll let this stand as my final assessment of the relative merits of the novel: In the few weeks since I have read Brooklyn, I have bought two additional copies as gifts – Tóibín made me buy the same novel three times.
October 15, 2009 9:30 am 2 Comments
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By kelly, October 18, 2009 @ 10:01 pm
I can’t wait to start our copy — as soon as I get through Elegance of the Hedgehog! — and will try to get the coop group to read it too…
By Ms. Journo-friend, March 15, 2010 @ 11:51 am
I finally read it! Wonderful book. Thank you soooo much. And my book group is discussing it tonight!