Brooklyn (Platinum Readers Circle (Center Point))

by Colm Toibin

In Ireland in the early 1950s, Eilis Lacey is one of many who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving behind her family and country, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady's intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation. Slowly, the pain of parting is buried beneath the rhythms of her new life -- and finally, she begins to realize that she has found a sort of happiness. As she falls in love, news comes from home that forces her back to Enniscorthy -- not to the constrictions of her old life, but to new possibilities which conflict deeply with the life she has left behind in Brooklyn.

• ISBN10: 1501106473
• ISBN13: 9781501106477
• Publish Date: 8 September 2015 (first published 29 April 2009)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Scribner Book Company
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[kerrydarkeyes]

I spent too much time wondering if the author had intentionally written Eilis as ace or if he was assuming a 1950s woman would have no concept of sexuality, to explain her relationship with Tony—for her then to be attracted to Jim.

Eilis giving into Tony’s plea for a civil marriage before she goes home sets up the trainwreck of her ending, and I don’t know whether I’m being unfair in my frustration because a woman of that time would be apt to submit to male pressure—or I’m justified in feeling her personality was still so unclear to me that I couldn’t figure out whether she was acting in character or not.