This is an ordinary story, with no glitz, glamour or sensationalism. Eilis Lacey is an ordinary girl from an ordinary and small town in Ireland in the 1950’s. Shy, quiet and naive, the youngest in a family of five, she travels to America when the opportunity is presented to her. Eilis lives with her mother who is recently widowed, and her older sister Rose. She looks up to this sister who quietly introduces her to the possibility of traveling to America. Although her brothers had gone to England to find work, Eilis was not inspired to follow, despite her own difficulty finding work. Her motivation often came from the suggestions of others. Eilis sometimes seems to wander through her own story, at the same time listening and learning from whomever she is around, and yet keeping herself to herself. I must admit that part of her character didn’t appeal, but Colin Tóibín’s writing kept me interested in her story. Eilis must decide between home, family and friends in Ireland that she's known all her life and returning to her new life in Brooklyn with a new job, education in book-keeping, and new and developing friendships ~ and independence.
Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn is an easy read, written from the mind of a young girl making decisions that need to be made, in a time when women were just learning to stand on their own.
“Until now, Eilis had always presumed that
she would live in the town all her life, as her mother
had done, knowing everyone, having the same friends
and neighbours, the same routines in the same streets.”
~ Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn
Author: Colm Tóibín
Publisher: Scribner ~ A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Publication Date: 2010 Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3831-1
ISBN: 978-1-4391-4895-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-4391-4982-9 (ebook)
Type: Fiction
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