A novel of enormous wit and profound emotional resonance from one of the world’s finest writers.
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighbouring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no-one to rely on in this still-new country.
One day, an Irishman comes to the door asking for Eilis by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but will leave it with her. Eilis has choices to make, and what she does in the wake of this shattering news is at the heart of one of Toibin’s most riveting and emotional novels to date.
Praise for Long Island
‘A masterful novel full of longing and regret … Intensely moving and yet full of restraint’ Douglas Stuart
‘His best yet … It reads like the tensest of stage plays, but with all the pleasures of interiority that the novel form allows. I haven’t wanted to hug this many characters in a while’ Naoise Dolan
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Imprint: Picador Australia
Publication date: 14/05/2024
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.
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