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Brooklyn

by Colm Toibin, Kirsten Potter (Narrator)

3.56 · rating details · 8,015 ratings · 1,847 reviews

<center> 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 I

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Compact Disc, 9 pages

Published May 5th 2009 by Blackstone Audiobooks (first published January 1st 2009)

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Mar 27, 2011

Barbara rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: immigration

The subjects of immigration and maturation have been dealt with in a most compelling manner in this gentle, flowing novel by Colm Toibin. Eilis Lacey, in her late teens, has crossed the ocean alone from her small, close knit town in Ireland to a totally foreign world in Brooklyn. Toibin has deftly woven each experience in a realistic, sometimes heart rending manner. The descriptions of Eilis's homesickness are some of the most tender yet raw, sweet yet sad, completely evocative pages that I have...more

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Oct 18, 2011

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it

· review of another edition

A beautiful story, a careful, slow build of character. Impeccable writing - spare, intense, precise. Deceptively simple at the sentence level; yet so perfectly matched to the character Toibin is creating and the story he is telling. This writing is stunning in its simplicity and its power.

Eilis is a wonderful protagonist, whose inner conflicts are shown through her experiences. At the same time, Toibin takes us into her head and lets us see how she works through major decision point...more

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Jul 01, 2009

Jeanette rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Jeanette by: Julie

Shelves: all-fiction, america, europe-and-british-isles, four-star-fiction

Marvelously simple, yet deceptively complex. The writing is remarkable for its descriptive clarity. Not one word is wasted.

I think what will determine your experience of this book is whether or not you can relate in any way to Eilis, the main character. I'm a completely different person(and I do mean completely) than I was when I was her age. As I was reading, I cast my mind back to the time I was her age and I knew I probably would have responded much the same if I had been thrown...more

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Jun 11, 2009

Jacquelyn rated it

· review of another edition

This book is about a young woman from Ireland who moves to Brooklyn in the 1950s for more job opportunities. The book is mostly about this girl growing and finding herself in a new city. The interactions between the characters is definitely the best part of the book, since all the charaters were well developed, and their various expectations of this girl. It was very interesting to see how this girl evolved and found her place in a new country. However, I was disappointed in the last section of ...more

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Jun 23, 2009

Chuck rated it

· review of another edition

"You can't go home again." Or can you? Perhaps it depends on where (or what) home is. Colm Tóibín explores this theme in his beautifully crafted tale of a young woman who emigrates in the 1950s from her home in Enniscorthy, Ireland to Brooklyn, New York. She struggles to make a life for herself in her new world, but just as she finds a high level of comfort in America, a family emergency summons her back to Ireland. There she finds herself deeply torn between her old home and her ...more

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Nov 17, 2011

Alanna rated it

· review of another edition

What an interesting read. Toibin's style of writing is like nothing I've ever read before. In some ways it seemIMHO simple, and then there'd be passages where he described his protagonist's feelings, and it was like he understood her so well it would take my breath away. And although it's a fairly simple story that often feels like it's unfolding with or without anyone deciding how things should happen (especially at the beginning, when it is decided that Eilis should go to America), I still ...more

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Nov 13, 2011

Lavinia rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, fiction, in-en

For what it's worth, the action could have taken place at the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th or during the Great Depression. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I didn't feel the '50s, and I mean that in the good way. I was absorbed by the story and the characters - and Brooklyn and the small Irish town are themselves characters - and if you ask me, the 4th part is what makes everything worth reading. Of course the other 3 are interesting - Eilis' decision to leave Ireland...more

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Mar 25, 2010

Seán rated it

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Shelves: irish-shite, 2010, borrowed-from-ma

Tóibín's greatest talent is in offering up deceptively simple tales that, on first blush, seem to be engaging yet not terribly portentous stories, but then open up wide when you realize the hidden dynamism of Colm's self-denying heroes.

I've also read The Heather Blazing and The Master, and in each Tóibín employs a laconic method of storytelling to explore the weaknesses that occlude people's vision. In The Master, Tóibín's achievement was the careful revealing of the sorrow of a repr...more

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May 08, 2010

Becky rated it

· review of another edition

Gentle and subtly suspenseful book about an Irish immigrant girl in Brooklyn in the early 1950s - 1951? Be forewarned that it’s a tear-jerker. Toibin writes beautifully and the structure is straightforward. The issues of Catholicism and national pride ring true. Home and grief and love are important themes.

Plot: A visiting priest arranges for the young Eilis to go to the US in order to have a better future for herself. She leaves her poor Irish home and in New York unde...more

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Mar 31, 2009

Jeff rated it

· review of another edition

The premise of "Brooklyn" is not new; however, it"feels" new in Colm Toibin's capable, talented hands. I found the novel highly engaging, beautifully written, and absolutely delightful.

"Brooklyn" tells the story of Eilis Lacey, an Irish girl from a small village who emigrates to the U.S. with hopes of bettering her life and career with opportunities afforded in the new world. The young emigre's story is told with such straightforwardness and simplicity ...more

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Feb 17, 2010

Ann rated it

· review of another edition

I'm about midway through this, but I don't know that I've ever read a more accurate and painful essence of homesickness--I kind of wept on the F train this morning. The description is right up there with the cinematic depictions of the mental states of drunkenness in Mean Streets and jet lag in Lost in Translation.

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Feb 20, 2011

Lucy_van_pelt rated it

· review of another edition

Wow, I would have never thought I'd like this as I couldn't even finish The Master. This is completely different, the writing style is extremely bare & matter of fact. There is no hidden agenda. Very affecting.

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Jan 17, 2011

Peggy L rated it

· review of another edition

Although I vacilated between sympathizing with the main character and wondering at her thought processes, in the end, I was disappointed in her behavior, choices and the ending of this book.

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Dec 17, 2011

Carinya Kappler rated it

· review of another edition

The book Brooklyn is at face value a simple sweet love story with an uncomplicated multi cultural theme. It details the thoughts and actions of very ordinary people going about their business and lives during the 1940s and 50s in Ireland and Brooklyn, USA. The author, Colm Toibin, sees the world through the eyes of his heroine Eilis. He possesses an uncanny insight into the small banal details that would have the most impact on Eilis. She is a character who floats along, living each day armed wi...more

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Nov 27, 2011

David Carr rated it

· review of another edition

Brooklyn inspires me to think about the history of making choices in personal lives. At midcentury, when this book is set, the limits of free will were bounded by faith and moral judgment, by biology, guilt, and suffocating beliefs. Sin appeared in hard common parlance, yet forgiveness was more obscure. Perhaps ignorance ought to be cited as well, but it was part of the accusatory landscape, a given element of the time, like cigarettes and alcohol. People made poor choices simply to resolve ...moreBrooklyn inspires me to think about the history of making choices in personal lives. At midcentury, when this book is set, the limits of free will were bounded by faith and moral judgment, by biology, guilt, and suffocating beliefs. Sin appeared in hard common parlance, yet forgiveness was more obscure. Perhaps ignorance ought to be cited as well, but it was part of the accusatory landscape, a given element of the time, like cigarettes and alcohol. People made poor choices simply to resolve ambiguities, to construct a small fenced haven, or to rescue themselves from their families. By twenty, or sooner, a life path was set, and barring accidents, one followed the course as prescribed. It is one reason for the slow change of the world.

Here Colm Toibin writes impeccably from within the mind of Eilis, a young Irish woman, starting out as an immigrant in postwar Brooklyn, living bullied and friendless in a cloistered rooming house, working in a ladies' department store while studying bookkeeping. She finds her way and crafts an independent life. The mysteries of her narrow experience and progress are told through her own confusions and momentary clarities, as though Toibin had copied her letters or stolen her diaries. She begins to find herself, to express an adult's self-confidence, and to inspire trust and affection in her parochial Irish world. At a Catholic church dance she and a young Italian man are drawn to each other. Then events -- a loss, a voyage, a return to the past -- teach their lessons to the innocent.

The fine craft of this novel reminded me of how much fiction depends on the many small but lifelong injustices we inherit at birth. Fate is local, internal, familial far more than it is cosmic. When we think we are most free, such injustices come to us, to shut down our imagination of the difference we want to live. I do not find solace or joy in these novels, and I do not admire innocence for its own sake. The purpose of innocence is to disappear. What I found here is a kind of greatness central to the purpose of fiction: lives explained, fates determined, innocence inevitably compromised. I am piling up books by Colm Toibin; I hope to find more of this mastery in other lives he has inhabited. Brooklyn is a very fine, lingering book.(less)

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Nov 23, 2011

Lorinda rated it

· review of another edition

I saw the name Colm Toibin cited in a sentence along with Colum McCann and I knew I had to buy one of his books. Brooklyn is set in the early 1950's and some people comment on the slow pace of the novel but it seems entirely appropriate to me. Toibin is a master at structuring the plot but the real interest comes from the thoughts inside the main character's head as she meets people and scans her new environment.

When she first meets her new boyfriend's parents and brothers: "She ...more

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Nov 17, 2011

Jacquelynn Luben rated it

· review of another edition

Brooklyn tells the story of Eilis, the younger daughter of an Irish Catholic family, just leaving school. Her older sister, Rose, has a good job, and the impression given is that the family - that is, the two sisters and their mother - are not flush with money and it is important that Eilis and her sister are both in work to maintain the family. Their brothers are already working in England. Despite the difficulties of getting jobs, there is no feeling that the family are on the breadline. O...more

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Oct 19, 2011

Sara rated it

· review of another edition

I thought I'd read enough reviews of this novel before picking it up to know what I was getting into: in the depressed 1950s in Ireland, a somewhat wallflowerish, small-town Irish girl is sent by her family, perhaps against her will and definitely in contradiction of what she understands her personality to be, to Brooklyn, New York, to work. From what I'd heard about the book, she goes to New York, blossoms surprisingly, and then is forced to return to Ireland after a family crisis. That's kind ...moreI thought I'd read enough reviews of this novel before picking it up to know what I was getting into: in the depressed 1950s in Ireland, a somewhat wallflowerish, small-town Irish girl is sent by her family, perhaps against her will and definitely in contradiction of what she understands her personality to be, to Brooklyn, New York, to work. From what I'd heard about the book, she goes to New York, blossoms surprisingly, and then is forced to return to Ireland after a family crisis. That's kind of the plot, but that actually tells you nothing about the way this book unfolds.

The first two hundred pages of the book are delicately written. Our main character, Eilis, has a way of understanding the suitors in her life as holding back, not giving in to a more ardent passion they feel, and that might be a good description of how Toibin treats both Ireland and Brooklyn. Clearly an intense amount of passion must have led him to gather so many period details (the book is surprisingly knowledgeable about the state of post-war women's nylons) but Toibin never feeds you more than you need. All the reviewers quoted in my paper-back edition of the book praise Toibin's faithful rendition of 1950s Brooklyn, but that seems like a silly thing to say -- what could any of these reviewers know about 1950s Brooklyn that didn't just come from books anyway? I think what they must be praising is his ability to plant one crucial period detail that evokes a whole ambiance, rather than trying to squeeze in 25 details that will prove how hard he researched the authenticity of his setting.

But it's the last 60 pages that are amazing. What might you think the point of a book would be, that sends a woman out to New York to go after her fortune, and then sends her back to sleepy, claustrophobic Ireland where she must confront the possibility of staying? That you can't go home again. That you can't escape your past. That the force of 1950s patriarchal culture is too strong even for an ambitious woman. That the condition of the emigrant is one of dwelling in two incommensurate worlds. No. No. No. None of these are the point of the book. Toibin avoids absolutely every cliche about the emigrant experience to deliver one of the most stunning fictions of the trans-Atlantic Irish world that has ever been written. No exaggeration. (less)

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Oct 02, 2011

Peter rated it

· review of another edition

"I had to read this for a book club. It is the tale of an Irishwoman in the 1950s who immigrates to New York, makes a life for herself, and after a visit back home, contemplates returning to Ireland permanently.

While not bad, I found the style of the novel simplistic, even annoying at times. Toibin was trying to communicate Eilis's reticent and reserved personality, but she seemed mostly dull and maddeningly conventional. It also seemed like it was written at a fifth grade le...more

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Sep 29, 2011

dubh rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

Eilis Lacey lebt mit ihrer Mutter und ihrer Schwester Rose in Enniscorthy, Irland. Ihre drei Brüder sind allesamt nach England gezogen, da sie dort Arbeit gefunden haben, und ihr Vater ist bereits vor einigen Jahren verstorben. Eilis selbst findet in ihrer Heimatstadt keine Arbeit und so muss die ältere Schwester für Eilis und ihre Mutter aufkommen.
Als ein Priester aus den USA auf Heimatbesuch kommt, geht alles recht schnell: Rose und die Mutter beschließen, dass Eilis nach New York soll um...moreEilis Lacey lebt mit ihrer Mutter und ihrer Schwester Rose in Enniscorthy, Irland. Ihre drei Brüder sind allesamt nach England gezogen, da sie dort Arbeit gefunden haben, und ihr Vater ist bereits vor einigen Jahren verstorben. Eilis selbst findet in ihrer Heimatstadt keine Arbeit und so muss die ältere Schwester für Eilis und ihre Mutter aufkommen.
Als ein Priester aus den USA auf Heimatbesuch kommt, geht alles recht schnell: Rose und die Mutter beschließen, dass Eilis nach New York soll um dort eine Arbeit zu finden. Die junge Eilis, die bis dahin kaum aus Enniscorthy herausgekommen ist, fügt sich diesem Wunsch und reist - nachdem alle nötigen Unterlagen beisammen sind und die Brüder die Überfahrt bezahlt haben - nach Amerika.
Erst nachdem die ersten Eindrücke der schlimmen Überfahrt, der neuen Unterkunft und der Arbeitsstelle in einem Kaufhaus halbwegs verdaut sind, bemerkt Eilis, dass sie fast völlig auf sich allein gestellt ist und wie sehr sie ihre Heimat, ihre Freunde und ihre Familie vermisst... Die detailreichen Briefe nachhause mildern nur anfänglich das immer stärker werdende Heimweh. Doch Father Flood, der Priester, der Eilis' Einreise in die USA überhaupt arrangiert hat, kümmert sich um sie: Eilis schreibt sich für Buchhaltungs-Abendkurse am Brooklyn College ein, lernt fleißig und geht sogar auf die irischen Tanzabende, die der Priester wöchentlich organisiert. Ganz allmählich wird Eilis abgelenkt und findet sich in der neuen Welt, die in den 1950er Jahren in Brooklyn allerdings auch recht irisch ist, zurecht. Und es geht sogar noch weiter: sie schließt Freundschaft, bedient die ersten schwarzen Kundinnen im Kaufhaus und hat sogar einen Verehrer - allerdings mit verpöhnter italienischer Herkunft...
Eilis Lacey wird langsam aber sicher erwachsen, ernsthafter und vor allen Dingen selbstbewußter - alles, ohne je darüber nachzudenken. Doch dann erreicht sie eine schreckliche Nachricht aus ihrer Heimat und sie muss sich bald schon entscheiden, wo sie denn nun hingehören möchte.

Colm Tóibín hat einen beachtlichen Schreibstil: ganz ruhig, irgendwie gewissenhaft, schildert er seine Figuren, gibt ihnen ohne große Worte Tiefe und Glaubhaftigkeit. Eilis Lacey ist eine ganz normale junge Frau in den 1950ern, die ihr Schicksal beinahe ungewollt in die Hand nimmt: sie findet ihren Weg fast alleine, wird immer selbstbewußter und bleibt trotzdem ganz sie selbst. Diese Art Tóibíns, von Menschen zu erzählen, die ansonsten im Strom nicht sonderlich auffallen, hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Eine Geschichte, die nicht komplett ungewöhnlich ist, die nicht mit überraschenden Kehrtwendungen besticht, sondern eine Geschichte, wie sie das Leben geschrieben hat und die gerade deshalb für mich sehr interessant und zum Ende hin sogar spannend war. Colm Tóibín erzählt großartig - ohne jeglichen Kitsch, ohne überzogenes HappyEnd, und trotzdem war ich nach der Lektüre glücklich, weil sie rund und ehrlich, mit viel Gefühl für die einzelnen Figuren und aus einem früheren Leben gegriffen ist. Und mir gefällt seitdem einfach die Vorstellung sehr gut, dass es noch solche Geschichten gibt und dass es lohnenswert ist, sie zu erzählen und sie zu lesen. (less)

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Sep 25, 2011

Lisa rated it

· review of another edition

This was an adult novel that I read for my adult literature book club. I don't think I ever would have picked up this novel on my own, but I am glad that I read it.

As most of you know I usually read young adult literature but I used to read a ton of adult literature too before I started blogging. So when I picked up this novel I was swept away by it. There was a different tone to it than YA books and it was like a drink of water I desperately needed.

I absolutely ador...more

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Sep 15, 2011

Gemma collins rated it

· review of another edition

I have been saving this book for some unspecified time and now, having just travelled in America and been living abroad as well, was the perfect time. I absolutely loved this book. I enjoyed the voice of the narrator, her moves towards adulthood as the book goes on, the novels frankness and unassuming pure storyline. There are no hidden morals or apologies or even dramatic conclusions and yet the personal nature of the story is emotionally intense and acutely described. It is a perfect expressio...more

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Sep 04, 2011

christa rated it

· review of another edition

The end of August my boyfriend and I were in New York City, waiting for Hurricane Irene to blink. We spent two of our five day vacation trying to figure out if we should wait out the storm, potentially arm-wrestling the natives for bottled water and pork rind rations, or cut it short and ditch back to the safety of our hurricane-free lives in Duluth.

We left, but not before I played a version of “Super Market Sweep” through Park Slope bookstores. Towering over a table of Brooklyn-speci...moreThe end of August my boyfriend and I were in New York City, waiting for Hurricane Irene to blink. We spent two of our five day vacation trying to figure out if we should wait out the storm, potentially arm-wrestling the natives for bottled water and pork rind rations, or cut it short and ditch back to the safety of our hurricane-free lives in Duluth.

We left, but not before I played a version of “Super Market Sweep” through Park Slope bookstores. Towering over a table of Brooklyn-specific authors on a table and deciding that if I couldn’t physically stay here I could at least read about this place we hadn’t had a chance to explore. Our flight was leaving on what had been earmarked as “Coney Island Day.”

Without this desire to learn more about Brooklyn, I’d have never bought “Brooklyn” by Colm Toibin. In fact, I’d picked it up tens of times, enticed by the cover and the chatter, then turned off by the description of a young Irish girl traveling to America during one of my least-favorite decades -- the 1950s. Bah-oh-oh-ring.

I’m not going to pretend I loved the book. It was mostly just a pause between reading this and that. But it did give me a good lay of the land, interested me once or twice with anecdotes about the immigrant experience, and eventually riled me into a froth that made me race through the final pages to decide whether I wanted to kick Toibin in the face for the actions of his protagonist Eilis Lacey. The answer to that question would be a spoiler.

Eilis is living in Ireland with her widowed mom and her sassafras sister Rose, a working girl and a golfer who, incidentally, would make a much more interesting lead character. Eilis has big plans to stay in her hometown forever. Same streets, same friends, she’s studying bookkeeping and will eventually find a job. Rose has other plans for her younger sister: A one-way ticket to a America, with the help of a visiting priest.

She’s got a room at a boarding house run by a prickly Irish landlady. She’s got a job as a shop girl at a store on Fulton Street. And when she is overwhelmed by homesickness, the priest pulls strings to get her into college courses to keep her busy.

Eilis meets Tony, an Italian native of Brooklyn, puppy-dog enthusiasm and a love for the Dodgers. He woos her hardcore and she has just started to get comfortable with his declarations of love when she receives bad news from home. She returns to Ireland, where forces have united to keep her.

Eilis is beloved by the people who get to know her. Her landlady says she is the only girl in the boarding house who isn’t a bitch and rewards her with the best room in the house. The priest takes a keen interest in her life and scopes out Tony so he can report his findings back to Rose. She is immediately swept up by Tony’s family, a handful of brothers and his parents who share a one-bedroom apartment but have big plans to turn a plot of land in Long Island into their playground. But for the reader, Eilis comes across as humorless, fun-sucked and not fully formed. When she’s granted the best bedroom she is suspicious of her landlady, rather than grateful. She struggles to make friends until Tony enters the picture and it’s hard to see what could possibly attract him to her.

But there are fun parts: Eilis getting seasick when she’s crossing the ocean, using a stray bucket as her toilet then barfing all over the boat. Eilis at a family dinner at Tony’s place, eating Italian food for the first time and marveling at how these flavors were made. Eilis losing her virginity in a super scandalous way.

Story-wise this one gets a “Meh.” At one point Toibin describes the air as feeling like toast. That might be my favorite part. But it was fun picturing the streets I’d caught only a glimpse of and reading about Coney Island, which I’ve still never seen because of that bitch Irene. (less)

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Aug 30, 2011

Brian rated it

· review of another edition

Set in the 1950s, partly in Enniscorthy, Ireland, and partly in Brooklyn USA, this is the story of Eilis, a young woman who emigrates from her homeland because of the lack of opportunities. In both Ireland and America she finds herself emotionally entangled with men who want to marry her and she has to make a choice.

That's more or less the whole plot. Nevertheless, this is the best book I've read for ages. It's beautifully written with such clarity and attention to detail. I was remi...more

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Jul 29, 2011

Catherine Woodman added it · review of another edition

Eilis is a likable heroine, and her story is remarkable in that it is relatively recent--it could be my parents story if they had not been born here--the opportunities in 1950's Ireland are not available for someone without education or connections--a priest from America offers Eilis an opportunity and a sponsorship of sorts and she takes it. She is likable--not dull but not womeone who is wild either. She volunteers at the church on Xmas. She doesn't much consort with her fellow boarders, and...more

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Jul 24, 2011

Susan rated it

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Shelves: 2011-historical-fiction-challenge, 2011-ireland-reading-challenge

In the early 1950s, Eilis Lacey cannot find work as a bookkeeper in her small home town of Enniscorthy Ireland. A NY priest arranges for her to emigrate and work in Brooklyn. Eilis is lonely and homesick at first, but with the help of a compassionate landlady, her employer and Father Flood, she becomes active and interested in her new life in Brooklyn. Eilis meets a kind and gentle Italian man, and they build a relationship. When tragic news calls Eilis back to Ireland, she feels strange at firs...more

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Jul 06, 2011

Michelle Lemaster rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Michelle by: Mostly Literary Book Club

Shelves: coming-of-age, favorites, love, mostly-literary-book-club-books, immigrant-lit

Oh man... this one got me. Written, as my friend Donna would describe, in a BBC, counting matchsticks style, about a post-WWII young,Irish immigrant woman, newly transplanted in Brooklyn, has a way of sneaking up on you and grabbing one's heart. Well, it grabbed mine anyway!

Toibin's writing style reminds me much of other subtle yet engrossing books. Old Filth, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, and Olive Kitteridge come to mind. Perhaps it is a Brittish style. I don't quite know how...more

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Jul 02, 2011

Book Concierge rated it

· review of another edition

This slim novel is set in the early 1950s. Eilis is just finishing her studies, living at home in a small town in Ireland with her widowed mother and older sister, Rose. Her three brothers have all gone to England for work. Rose encourages Eilis to get more training in bookkeeping, so she might have a good office job one day, and Eilis goes along with this plan. When an opportunity presents itself for Eilis to go to America for a better job, Rose encourages her to do so. The parish priest sees ...moreThis slim novel is set in the early 1950s. Eilis is just finishing her studies, living at home in a small town in Ireland with her widowed mother and older sister, Rose. Her three brothers have all gone to England for work. Rose encourages Eilis to get more training in bookkeeping, so she might have a good office job one day, and Eilis goes along with this plan. When an opportunity presents itself for Eilis to go to America for a better job, Rose encourages her to do so. The parish priest sees to it that she has a safe rooming house in which to live, a good job, and even gets her into Brooklyn College to continue her studies in bookkeeping. She’s a lonely girl, however. Never really confiding in anyone about her thoughts or feelings, she even denies most of her thoughts and feelings to herself. She meets a young man who slowly begins to enter her life and heart, but just as they are beginning to consider a future together, tragedy strikes Eilis’s family back in Ireland and she must go home for a visit. Or is she going back to Ireland to stay?

There isn’t a terribly complicated plot here, and the writing is fairly simple and straightforward. But there is plenty of tension in Eilis’s inner turmoil. She’s never sure how she feels, or what she should do, and, as a result, she’s easily swayed by the arguments or cajoling of her coworkers, roommates, friends, or family. She does not want to disappoint anyone, and so she inevitably disappoints nearly everyone – especially herself.

The novel explores what it means to emigrate – the pain of leaving home behind vs the excitement of a new location; the warm embrace of family vs the loneliness of living on one’s own in a strange place. It is also a story about how one young woman sets out to make a life for herself – and wonders if she’s made the right choices.

I enjoyed this novel and I think it will make for a good discussion at my F2F book club, but I can’t give it more than 3 stars because I didn’t connect with Eilis. That is intentional, I think, on the author’s part. Eilis is written as a very cautious young woman, who keeps her thoughts and emotions carefully hidden from others – including the reader. The result is a book that I appreciate but don’t “love.”
(less)

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Jun 04, 2011

Andi Burkholder rated it

· review of another edition

This book was handed to me by a friend who knows how much I love all things Irish and New York. This WAS both and from an historical point of view the portrait of the lives at the time in both places was interesting. The book started somewhere around the second chapter instead of the beginning and ended just before the climax. I felt the ending was rushed and really not well planned. I never really fell in love with any of the characters mostly because there was no real introduction to the heroi...more

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Apr 12, 2011

Geoffrey Fox rated it

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A sweet, gentle story of an Irish girl who migrates in the 1950s from her small town to bustling and multi-ethnic Brooklyn, learns to cope, finds a nice Italian-American guy, returns to Ireland for a wake and a visit and is briefly torn between slipping back into the familiar comforts of the old place and returning to her new life back in Brooklyn. Though written by a man, this is a woman's book, told from Eilis Lacey's point of view and mostly about her relations with other girls and women, who...more

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