Brooklyn

 

Summary (from the publisher): Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Tóibín's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America--to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"--she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.

Review: Set in Ireland and Brooklyn in the early 1950s, this novel follows Eilis Lacey. Eilis has grown up in a small town in Ireland in the years after World War II. She is the youngest of five children and her father has died and three older brothers have all moved away from Ireland in search of work. Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the slow Irish economy so her older, unmarried sister Rose makes arrangements for her to go to live and work in Brooklyn in America. Eilis bravely submits to her family's plans for her future and begins work in a department store and takes bookkeeping courses at night. Unexpectedly, she fall sin love with a blonde Italian and her future in America begins to take shape. Yet the pull of her family and her roots in Ireland threaten the fragile life she has begun to build in America. 

This was a beautiful book. It is spare yet somehow searing in its quiet description of the heartbreak and unseen struggles that Eilish endures. Eilish as a character is determined, hard working, and plucky. While kind and thoughtful, she isn't afraid to be harsh when she feels its warranted. Her life, even before she leaves Ireland, is relatively lonely. She doesn't appear to confide much in her sister, mother, or friends, but just quietly sets about processing and coming to her own conclusions and choices. Her family is much the same, with each quietly holding their heartbreak close to their chest. 

At the heart of the novel is Eilish being forced to choose between the familiar at home in Ireland with her family and friends and the new in Brooklyn where everything is exciting but also different and far away from everything else she knows and loves. She must choose between her growing love for Tony and her duty and love to her widowed mother.

I don't want to give away any spoilers, but this book had one of the best concluding paragraphs I have ever read. Over the course of the novel we see Eilish move from allowing events to just happen to her to slowly becoming more confident in shaping her own future. Simple yet profound, this introspective novel was deeply moving. One of the most convincing novels about a woman written by a male author that I have ever read. 

Stars: 5