‘Is it possible to truly return to the past and renew the great love that seemed gone forever…’
– Long Island
[ About Long Island ]
A man with an Irish accent knocks on Eilis Fiorello’s door on Long Island and in that moment everything changes. Eilis and Tony have built a secure, happy life here since leaving Brooklyn – perhaps a little stifled by the in-laws so close, but twenty years married and with two children looking towards a good future.
And yet this stranger will reveal something that will make Eilis question the life she has created. For the first time in years she suddenly feels very far from home and the revelation will see her turn towards Ireland once again. Back to her mother. Back to the town and the people she had chosen to leave behind. Did she make the wrong choice marrying Tony all those years ago? Is it too late now to take a different path?
[ My Review]
Long Island by Colm Tóibín published May 23rd with Picador and is described as ‘a masterpiece…an exquisite, exhilarating novel’. It is the sequel to Colm Tóibín’s prize-winning, bestselling novel Brooklyn and was an instant Sunday Times bestseller. It was also the 105th book club choice for Oprah’s Book Club with Oprah calling it ‘a novel about a woman’s reckoning with “infidelity, with long-lost love, with secrets, and the universal struggle we all have to figure out where we truly belong.”
Long Island takes us back into the life of Eilis Lacey, now Eilis Fiorello. Living on Long Island, she daily navigates her marriage to Tony and his very close and cross-generational Italian family. Eilis sometimes feels suffocated with the cacophony of noise and chatter that surrounds her but over the years she has managed to circumnavigate certain gatherings, providing her with the much needed time to herself. Eilis left Enniscorthy many years previously, leaving her mother behind. Now with two children of her own, she is conscious of the Irish connection and the fact that her kids have never been to Ireland. Eilis is distanced from her mother. There is a certain coldness in their communication but when Eilis unexpectedly finds herself in a troubling situation, she makes the journey home to Ireland, and back to the house she grew up in.
When Eilis left Enniscorthy the last time, she left a trail of devastation and heartbreak behind her. In returning she is fully aware that heads will turn and remarks will be made but she needs time away from Tony and the Fiorello family. She is determined to stand up for her sanity and her pride and the familiarity of home might just be the solution.
Twenty years is a long time away from the people and places that you love. Eilis tentatively arrives back with no particular airs and graces, yet also conscious of the fact that she is the one returned from America. People have expectations of what she will now be like and her mother, determined to show family strength, gathers her children from far and wide, marching them all to mass with their heads held high. When Eilis’s children join her for a holiday, they are intrigued by the way life is lived, so different from the Italian ways of home but they quickly adapt. Eilis, however, starts to flounder. As she meets old acquaintances and friends, she can’t help but think of a different life, a different path, and she wonders – what if? Long Island is Eilis’s story as she attempts to figure out her true place, her true path. Old memories are stirred up with plenty of reminiscing over what might have been.
I am a little conflicted with my feelings on this novel. I knew in advance that the ending was quite abrupt and open to interpretation but I would have liked it to have been a little more wrapped up. It felt like a chapter had just ended. As well as Brooklyn, I have also read Nora Webster (2014) and The Magician (2021). When I read The Magician I was completely captivated, immersed in the extraordinary detail, but, unfortunately, neither Nora Webster nor Long Island engaged me to the same extent. Nostalgia played a big part in my deciding to read Long Island and, after I raved about The Magician, I picked up Long Island with huge expectations. There is no question that the novel is beautifully written. Colm Tóibín’s depiction of life in a rural Irish town is quite vivid, conveying that sense of restraint and self-discipline that was all too common in Ireland at the time, but, there were scenes where the characters felt a little two-dimensional. I wanted more passion, more emotion, even in their private moments. I wanted to feel some emotion but I didn’t.
Long Island is a quiet and reserved reading experience, written with a very elegant pen. There is a subtlety to the writing with some beautiful observations of human frailty and angst. It is most definitely a charming read, but I quite simply wanted more!
[ Bio ]
Colm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of eleven novels, including The Master, Brooklyn, and The Magician, and two collections of stories. He has been three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. Tóibín was appointed the Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024.
Interesting review, Mairéad. I think I know what you mean about being conflicted. I haven’t read Long Island so this is just a general – and probably unpopular! – observation. Colm Tóibín is an acknowledged master of his art. For others, it may be difficult to mine the scenario of rural Ireland, tradition, going to mass, etc in an original way any more. I’ll go back under my rock and read Brooklyn first!
Sheila, I’m possibly in the minority. It’s beautifully written, but I just put it down with a feeling of ‘meh’. I do think a better end is necessary. Was it because he himself couldn’t decide on an ending? Who knows. Too open for me.
I’d been a little apprehensive about reading this one and still haven’t. I loved Brooklyn and wondered whether a sequel would live up to it although, like you, I was a little disappointed by Norah Webster. Your review’s a useful forewarning!
Susan, I think a stronger finish would have made a huge difference to my overall experience. And definitely, more emotions would have been a plus.