Brooklyn (Platinum Readers Circle (Center Point))

by Colm Toibin

3.5 of 5 stars 6 ratings • 1 review • 15 shelved
Book cover for Brooklyn

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In a small town in the south-east of Ireland in the 1950s, Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who cannot find work at home. So when a job is offered in America, it is clear that she must go. Leaving her family and home, Eilis sets off to forge a new life for herself in Brooklyn. Young, homesick and alone, she gradually buries the pain of parting beneath the rhythms of a new life - days at the till in a large department store, night classes in Brooklyn College and Friday evenings on the dance floor of the parish hall - until she realizes that she has found a sort of happiness. But when tragic news summons her back to Ireland, and the constrictions of her old life unexpectedly give way to new possibilities, she finds herself facing a terrible choice: between love and happiness in the land where she belongs and the promises she must keep on the far side of the ocean.

Brooklyn is a tender story of great love and loss, and of the heartbreaking choice between personal freedom and duty. In the character of Eilis Lacey Colm Tóibín has created a remarkable heroine and in Brooklyn a novel of devastating emotional power.

  • ISBN10 0670918121
  • ISBN13 9780670918126
  • Publish Date 29 April 2009
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 11 June 2011
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
  • Imprint Viking
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 256
  • Language English