Brooklyn is the first book in the Eilis Lacey series by award-winning Irish author, Colm Toibin. The youngest child of Enniscorthy’s Lacey family, Eilis has watched her brothers depart for Birmingham and a better chance at employment, while she and her widowed mother depend on her older sister, Rose’s wage. So when Mrs Kelly offers Eilis work in her shop, she can’t refuse the chance to help her family out financially. Mrs Kelly’s petty prejudices make for entertaining dinner conversation, but when Father Flood, visiting from Brooklyn, suggests that her talents for bookkeeping will be more appreciated in his parish, Rose and her brothers make it happen. Those around her are excited for this opportunity, but Eilis dreads the idea that she will lose this world forever, that “she would never have an ordinary day again in this ordinary place, that the rest of her life would be a struggle with the unfamiliar”. And she realises that, by sending her to America, Rose is sacrificing any chance of marrying and having a family, knowing she will be needed to care for their mother. “She wondered if her mother too believed that the wrong sister was leaving.” After a none-too-pleasant week on a steamer, Eilis is in Brooklyn, living with five other lodgers in Mrs Kehoe’s boarding house, and working on the shop floor at the Bertocci & Co. Department store. The philosophy of her new employer is a refreshing change from Mrs Kelly’s treatment of customers: “We treat everyone the same. We welcome every single person who comes into this store. They all have money to spend. We keep our prices low and our manners high.” And their attitude to their staff: “The only way for the customers to be happy is for the staff to be happy” means that the homesickness her brother Jack warned her of in very vague terms is met with sympathy and a practical solution. While she has made no friends, either amongst her fellow lodgers, at work, or at her night classes, Father Flood’s Friday night dances see young man (not Irish) interested. Eilis isn’t wholly sure about the developing relationship, and when a family crisis calls her back to Enniscorthy, familiarity, and the attentions of an eligible young man from her past, tempt her, requiring a choice… In every paragraph, and with exquisite prose, Toibin captures the nineteen-fifties with consummate ease: the setting, the numerous cultural references (fashion, food, music, movies, sport) and the attitudes, the mindset of the communities, all virtually shout out the era. This is a story that will resonate strongly with readers of a certain vintage, yet can’t help having a wider appeal. His protagonist is a complex young woman and it will be interesting to revisit her in the sequel, Long Island.

….but I was very wrong. I just loved it and wanted to know more - and thankfully there is a follow up soon to be published. Fabulous writing by a talented author

Brooklyn is the story of Eilis Lacey’s journey to America, from post war Ireland, and a deceased father whom Eilis obviously had a strong attachment to. With the aid of Father Flood, and her sister Rose who seems willing to sacrifice the chance of advancement in her own life for Eilis to travel to the ‘New World’. Parts of the narrative are told with real clarity: the Christmas feast is a fine example of Colm Toibin’s beautiful prose. Brooklyn is a superb novel; the characters are so well drawn, yet distinct.

This is a beautifully written and moving novel about a young Irishwoman, Eilis, who emigrates to New York to make a new and better life for herself. I loved the writing style, so simple and unpretentious. There is no big drama but much attention is paid to small details. Maybe it's the matter-of-factness and all the mundane goings-on but the characters just leapt off the page for me. I could really feel Eilis' fears, her homesickness and her struggle to come to a decision of what to do with her life. After all, it's the 1950s and your choice of husband will be for the rest of your life.

REVIEW ORIGINALLY POSTED ON ABOOKORTEN.CO.UK I've been intending to read a book by Colm Tóibín for a long time. As an undergrad I know I read The Blackwater Lightship, but as many of the books I read in those three years, I’ve since lost many of the details, but retain a sense of awe at the writing. I first came across Brooklyn in a postgrad seminar, studying the use of dialogue to convey character with subtlety. When the film adaptation starring Saoirse Ronan appeared on Netflix, I watched it with interest, and was immediately keen to pick the book up for myself. I was really delighted with what I found – a gentle, taught novel with sensibility and emotion at its heart. It’s unusual for me to have seen a film before picking up the book, but in this case I was glad that I had. The language of Eilis Lacey’s story is steady and measured, imbued with the restraint of its 1950s setting. A young woman leaves her home in Ireland to live in Brooklyn. Her journey moves in phases – the rush of her departure creeping up on her, the routine of acclimatising and the alien feeling of homesickness. The gentleness with which the story moves, however, may have slowed my reading down if I hadn’t seen the film first, and therefore had a shape of the plot in mind to drive me onwards. And it’s worth mentioning that this light touch never sacrifices any fullness of feeling The period details are so gently evoked as to seem effortless, and Eilis’ character is fully realised from the first page. She is often uncertain of her own motivations, and her attempts to unravel them is charmingly and observantly played out. It is a coming of age story, charting how she finds her independence and learns to direct her own choices, and how incapable anyone would be of this without a robust network of supporters surrounding them. Tóibín also creates atmosphere which leaks of the page, in close connection with Eilis’ mindset and mood: the claustrophobia of Enniscorthy and its gossip, the loneliness of winter in the city, the openness and possibility of it in the summer, are sharply communicated. There are many wonderful character creations here. I was cheering Eilis on at many moments, but equally I enjoy the kindness and strictness of Father Flood. A book already beautiful comes alive with the introduction of Tony and his spark of liveliness, of enthusiasm for everything. The relationships are tenderly explored and probed for their meanings – and the hand of chance in everything is heavily felt. Many things happen for Eilis in Brooklyn which were inaccessible in her hometown – and there are things in Enniscorthy which she will always miss. But the contrasts are made the greater by their connection to each other, through other members of her Irish community and Eilis herself. This is a beautiful book about family, love and independence, immigration and displacement, which I very highly recommend picking up.