Book Review: Long Island

Long Island
By Colm Toibin
Review by Renata

The sequel to Toibin’s much-lauded novel Brooklyn dives headlong into the drama when a doorstep revelation sets off multiple bombshells in the family of Eilish Lacey. Escaping the fallout from this event, Eilish returns to Enniscorthy, the hometown she left decades before, and reconnects with her old flame, Jim. But here too, the deeply ingrained habits of repression and secrecy lay emotional tripwires.

Smalltown Ireland is intimately familiar ground for Toibin and he captures the textures of this specific time and place with deep authenticity. The eloquently evoked sights, smells and turns of phrase serve to amplify the silence and inhibition that underpin – and undermine – the lives of all the characters. Toibin is a grandmaster of the unsaid and he drives this train-crash-in-slow-motion to its climactic ending with subtlety and skill.