I never read Brooklyn but I was able to read the follow up Long Island without trouble. I have heard Colm Toibin is an exceptional writer but I just did not care for the disjointedness of the writing, characters pass in and out, back & forth, hard to keep track of both family members through out the book. I personally didn't like the flow of the book. Nancy seemed to be the more dominant charactor of the book. As for Eilis. Lacey (pronounciation please) she just wasn't likable and rather dull. I thank NetGalley for the ARC.

Know that this feels like it's wandering, meandering a bit and then all the sudden there will be a pow or a flash of recognition that, well, no spoilers. It's 1976 and Eilis has thought she's happily married to Tony and mothering their children Rosella and Larry but it seems Tony got another woman pregnant and her husband plans to drop the baby on Eilis's doorstep-something she's not prepared to accept. Eilis has carefully carved out a life with a bit of separation from Tony's claustrophobically close family (some of this is revealed in a sort of flashbacks that might seem a bit confusing). Her mother's 80th birthday is an excuse to go to Ireland where she finds things she didn't expect, not the least of which is her old flame Jim. Jim who has been seeing her old BFF Nancy, now a widow running a chip shop. This atmospheric novel is all about family- good and bad (gosh Eilis's mother in law!) and about love. There's a bit of hypocrisy too. No spoilers but know there's ambiguity at the end. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A great read.

This is the much anticipated sequel to Brooklyn; a story I devoured about characters I completely adored. In the Brooklyn, Eilis Lacey is a recent immigrant to the United States having left her homeland and family behind in Ireland. She is courageous and we relish in her love affair with Tony Fiorello, an Italian man she met at a dance. They marry and build a future together. Life is good.

Long Island occurs 20 years later and the love affair is over. Tony has fathered a child with another woman and Eilis makes another tough decision to return to Ireland while her marriage is falling apart. There we are reunited with two other characters from Brooklyn: Jim - a pub owner who Eilis was involved with during an early return visit to Ireland and Nancy - Eilis's former best friend who is now secretly involved with Jim. It's the love triangle we never saw coming.

Told through multiple points of view, Long Island chronicles the thoughts and emotions of these characters who are at a crossroads. This is a character driven novel with no big twists or reveals. The tone of the book is mostly flat which perfectly captures these middle aged characters who live ordinary lives. It is a poignant study of choices and consequences. Once again, Colm Toibin puts relationships at the heart of his writing.

Some may find the ending abrupt and, perhaps, disappointing. Others will see it as a promise of another book in the saga from Colm Toibin. I'm conflicted which is likely exactly what the author intended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this novel in exchange for my unbiased review.

The best part of this book is that I had no idea what was going to happen next; I kept reading because I wanted to find out what happened to the main characters. Unfortunately, I overall felt like this book had too many drawbacks for me to be able to recommend. I like that Toibin told this from multiple POVs, but I thought that all their voices ultimately sounded the same -- the flat, more unemotional tone would have been believable for one of the characters, but not for all of them. I also feel like Tony's actions felt so unexpected given his characterization in "Brooklyn," the prequel, and I fully understand that relationships can change drastically but that we needed some exposition of how his and Eilis's relationship had developed such that things were at a point where he was fathering another person's child. Additionally, I found the side characters to be pretty one-dimensional, particularly Eilis' kids who play important roles in the novel. I wish Eilis and Nancy's relationship had been treated with more care and complexity, instead of the focus being on their relationships with the men in their lives and viewing each other through that prism. Frankly, I'm confused why this really needed to be a sequel and in some ways think it could have worked better as a stand-alone novel with original characters who could have shared similar ties to each other.

I think this will appeal to certain audiences, and others not at all. As someone who loved Brooklyn and its movie adaptation, I was disappointed in the fact that Tony's infidelity was a central plot point, because the previous novel made me love them as a couple. The subject of a forty-something woman rebuilding her life is one I do love, especially when it involves a trip to Ireland. The theme of going home to reconnect with one's former self never gets old, but I almost wish Toibin made new characters instead of using the characters from Brooklyn. Fans of Elizabeth Strout's series may enjoy this continuation. The ending will definitely make some people upset, if they don't like ambiguity.

Beautifully written but very slow plot. Much of what happens is mulled over incessantly in the main characters' head. I hate ambiguous endings. I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Eilis and Tony have been married for 20 years living on Long Island on a cul de sac with Tony’s brothers and parents. They are a tight knit Italian family who spend every Sunday together. Eilis is still an outsider though her children are accepted into the family fold. One day, a man knocks on her door to tell her that Tony had an affair with his wife and he refuses to raise the baby and will leave the baby with them. Eilis wants nothing to do with the baby but Tony’s mother feels differently and no one bucks the matriarch.

Eilis goes to Ireland to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday and to get some much needed distance to think. Her children come with her. There she confronts her past in the tiny village where everyone knows everything. She tries to carve out a different future for herself but there is a tidal wave of other forces at play. This is a quiet contemplative story about the challenges life has in store for you. I was engrossed in the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for this advanced readers copy.

In Brooklyn, we gained an intimate knowledge of Eilis, a young lady who moved from Ireland to New York seeking opportunity. Eilis is an easy character to love with her calm, diligent, and naïve manner. She married an Italian, Tony, who lives with his tight-knit family.

As Long Island starts 20 years later, the family has moved together to houses on the same street, where Eilis is basically living alone among her Italian family. Her two children are her loves, and she pours herself into them until a man shows up at her door saying that Tony has fathered a child with his wife and he will not have the baby in his house. He threatens to drop the baby at their door when it is born, and Eilis will have none of it. Good for her!

This shocking news sets Eilis on a path back to Ireland for a long stay. There, we are reintroduced to two characters: Eilis’s former boyfriend Jim and her best friend Nancy. The POV rotates between the three of them as they reengage with each other, and their lives become intertwined again.

The book is another winner and a great sequel. It is beautiful in its simplicity. There are no earth-shattering twists or turns, just a tale of life and longing for what could have been. All three characters are multifaceted and interesting. Nancy is a widow who runs a fish and chips shop. Jim is quiet and owns a popular bar in town. They are all introspective and often hold their cards close to the vest.

I find Colm Tóibín’s writing absolutely beautiful. He creates wonderfully nuanced characters and breathes life into a charming small town where everyone knows everything about their neighbors. In fact, I’d say the town of Enniscorthy is a fourth main character. Certainly a fascinating place.

I didn’t love the ending, but that didn’t keep this from getting 5 stars. I need to read more of his work!

An excellent sequel to the much-acclaimed Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Flas-forward 20 years to the 1970s and we once again meet the characters from Brooklyn. Eilis is now married and settled in Long Island with Tony and has two teenaged children, Larry & Rosella. The rest of Tony's family lives next door in the family enclave. One day, a man knocks on Eilis' door saying that his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and he is going to leave the child on their doorstep when it is born. Eilis is furious and definitely not amenable to this arrangement. Tony and the rest of his family though have a different view. This causes a rift between Tony and Eilis prompting her to pay a longish visit to her 80-year old mother back in Ireland. I read Brooklyn in anticipation of reading this novel and also watched the movie. I must admit I loved the movie more than the book. This is however not absolutely necessary and the book can be read as a stand-alone. I actually loved this sequel and the plotline much more than Brooklyn. It was hilarious in parts and the characters felt very real. None of them are perfect yet they are human. This is easy, light reading perfect for summer and perfect for fans of family fiction and women's fiction. I don't want to do spoilers but I'm sure there is another sequel in the pipeline.
Thank you NetGalley, Scribner & Colm Toibin for the ARC.

Long Island by Colm Tóibín revisits Eilis of the acclaimed 2009 novel Brooklyn in 1976 where she now lives with her husband Tony and their teenage son and daughter on a Long Island cul-de-sac next to Tony’s parents and brothers. When a man knocks on Eilis’s door and tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s baby and “as soon as the little bastard’s born,” he’ll leave it on her doorstep, Eilis tells Tony that she won’t accept it. Behind her back, Tony’s mother agrees to take the child, so Eilis leaves to visit her mother in Ireland after arranging for her children to join her in a few weeks for her mother’s 80th birthday. Upon returning to her small hometown, Eilis encounters Jim, who she’d previously loved and left. She also sees her now widowed best friend Nancy. Unbeknownst to Eilis, Nancy and Jim are secretly engaged. Despite Jim’s love for Nancy, his attraction and love for Eilis are rekindled. The novel builds quietly and assuredly, making the reader care about Eilis, Jim, and Nancy. One moment the reader begs for Jim and Nancy to elope and be happy. In another, we want Eilis and Jim to be together. We worry about Eilis’s children. We become a part of all their lives in this brilliantly devastating novel that will have book clubs debating the best course of action.

**Received an ARC from Scribner and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I somehow found myself drawn in and terribly invested in the lives and decisions of these 40-somethings in Enniscorthy. There is not much resolution in the end, which tends to bother me (and definitely did in this case). But the more I think about it, the more it seems to be about all the decisions one makes in the course of a lifetime, all the different turns one's life could have taken had they (or others) chosen a path other than the one they did. It is clear, reading the sequel, just how many drawbacks both life in Enniscorthy and life in America had for Eilis, regardless of which one she chose. It was a well-done book and the multiple perspectives -- something that Brooklyn did not have since Ellis was the sole narrator -- really complemented the storytelling. It was especially interesting and affecting to get inside Jim Farrell's head given what a quiet and almost unknowable character he was in the first book. Some of the most moving lines were in sections from his perspective, about his life and feelings and regrets.

Long Island by Colm Toibin is the sequel to Brooklyn, taking place 20 years later. I did not read Brooklyn but saw the very charming movie and would recommend reading Brooklyn first or seeing the movie before reading Long Island.

Eilis, an Irish immigrant, has been married to Tony for 20 years and they have two children. Unexpectedly, Eilis finds out that Tony has been having an affair and the other woman is pregnant. Ultimately, Eilis returns to Ireland to visit her mother and strikes up a relationship with Jim, who was also part of her past in Brooklyn.

While there were many enjoyable parts of the story, it seemed incomplete to me. It was interesting to get different perspectives but just fell a little short for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and Scribner for the opportunity to read this digital ARC.

EIlis left her family in Ireland and has not seen them in over 20 years, she returned to Brooklyn and married Tony Fiorello (well technically they were married before she visited her family)- but you need to read Brooklyn), moved to Long Island and lives with his close knit Italian family in their cul de sac.  Now older and with two teenage children, Eilis is confronted by a neighbor who angrily informs her that Tony has gotten his wife pregnant and as soon as the baby is born, he will be leaving the newborn on their doorstep.  Faced with the prospect of raising her husband's child and the demise of her marriage, Eilis decides to return to Ireland to visit with her family and while there, she also encounters the man with whom she had a love affair the last time she visited (it's a small village).

Toibin's books are quietly subtle, he delves into the characters, their pathologies and their relationships.  The abrupt endings seem to be his hallmark, they are not my favorite part of the books but I have at least grown to expect it and this one was no exception.  While the characters were extremely frustrating in their choices, Toibin makes you understand the why behind the decisions and armed with that the reader is able to give them grace.  I really enjoy his writing and his stories but I can see how he is not everyone's cup of tea.  I read Brooklyn right before I this one and I think it really enhanced my experience in enjoying this novel; while it could be a standalone I do think a reader will get so much more out of it having read the two.

4.25 stars
Thank you NetGalley and Scriber for the ARC to review

YES. The return of Ellis Lacey!

We now visit Ellis in Long Island, where she lives in a cul-de-sac, surrounded by her husband's family. Her own two children are teenagers, and Ellis still feels alone in the world. One day, a man comes to the door, and tells Ellis that his wife is pregnant with her husband's child. He will not raise the child and will instead drop the baby off on Ellis's doorstep.

As with Brooklyn, this is a very introspective story with drama and tragedy and heartbreak. It's what we've all been waiting for since Brooklyn.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of Long Island. I loved Brooklyn when I read it and was anxiously waiting for this sequel. I have to say it didn’t disappoint. I love the writing style and characters. I’m definitely recommending this.

I read Brooklyn many, many years ago, and it was the first movie I made my now-husband watch back when we were first dating and introducing each other to our favorite things. One of my best friends and I spent many girls’ nights in our twenties watching it, and it is one of the few DVDs I still have in a place of honor in my living room. I read the book with another great friend, and it provided plenty of insightful conversation. All that to say, I loved (and still love) Brooklyn so, so much. When I saw that Toibin was releasing a sequel, it was instantly on my “must-read” list. I was thrilled when I was presented with the opportunity to read the ARC!

In Long Island, Toibin did it again. He masterfully created a heart-wrenching story that had me desperately longing for my lunch hour to read a few more chapters. Admittedly, when I started, I was so devastated by Tony’s betrayal that I had to set it down for a day; however, once I picked it back up, I had no desire to stop again. The writing style is lovely, and all the side characters were interesting (and sometimes frustrating). Toibin truly has a gift for portraying emotion and longing! The characters all have their flaws and miscommunications, but that’s what makes them human.

While this could probably be read as a standalone, I do believe the full emotional punch is best felt with the backstory of Eilis, Tony, Jim, and Nancy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Set in the 1970s, two decades after making her debut in Colm Toibins acclaimed “Brooklyn” “Long Island “ brings back Eilis Lacey in a sequel that is nothing less than a compelling read. Eilis is married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber of Italian descent. The couple lives in Lindenhurst, Long Island, a south shore suburb of New York. Surrounded by Tony’s large family who all have homes close by, and do almost everything together, it is difficult for Eilis to maintain privacy or autonomy. She hasn’t returned to Ireland in twenty years and her own Irish family has never met her two teenage children.

When a neighbor rings her bell one day to give her shocking news about her husband, Eilis is forced to confront the unimaginable and locks horns with a united and determined Fiorello family. In a effort to figure out what direction her life must take, Eilis flies to her small hometown in Ireland to help celebrate her mothers upcoming 80th birthday. It is there that circumstances force her to face her former boyfriend, still unmarried, whom she abandoned without explanation so many years earlier. Toibin deftly creates tension and drama both emotional and physical in the triangles love at the heart of this story.

Character development is this author’s forte. Each person in this novel lacks forthright honesty. Secrets abound . Each must guess, even when a situation is urgent, what the other is thinking or doing. Hidden agendas lurk everywhere. This is a story seeped in deception, secrecy, poor communication and self interest. Yet the characters are real and likable for the most part. It takes an author who is very adept in his craft to make that happen.

From beginning to end this is a five star read. I hope that a third installment of Eilis Lacey’s life is in the works, making this a trilogy. Many thanks to NetGalley and Edelweiss for this advance reader copy in exchange for my review. Publication date is just a week away, May 7, 2024. Reserve your copy now!

Published by Scribner on May 7, 2024

I’m not always a fan of domestic drama, but I’m a huge fan of Colm Tóibín. He writes about couples in crisis with honesty rather than melodrama. Long Island is a sequel to Brooklyn, a continuation of that story of relationship uncertainty in the context of cultural clashes.

Readers of Brooklyn (or viewers of the movie) will recall that Eilis Lacey emigrated from Ireland to America, found a job, endured homesickness, met and married a young Italian man named Tony who was working as a plumber, returned to Ireland to attend her sister’s funeral, and found herself torn between remaining in Ireland (where both familiarity and a young Irishman named Jim Farrell appealed to her) and returning to her husband in Brooklyn. She decides in favor of her marriage, prompted in part by local gossip that makes it impossible to pretend she is single.

Twenty years later, Jim owns a pub in Enniscorthy. He is having a clandestine dalliance with Nancy Sheridan, a widow who owns a nearby chip shop. He has finally worked his way around to proposing, more or less, when Eilis comes back to visit her mother. Notwithstanding his relationship with Nancy, Jim cannot help revisiting the sense of loss he felt when Eilis left for America twenty years earlier.

During those twenty years, Tony and Eilis accomplished Tony’s dream of moving to Long Island. They built a home that was surrounded by the homes of Tony’s siblings and parents. Tony and Eilis had two kids and apparently had a steady marriage until it was rocked by news that Tony made a customer pregnant while fixing her leaking pipes. The customer’s husband wants nothing to do with Tony’s baby and threatens to leave it on Eilis’ doorstep after it is born. Eilis also wants nothing to do with the baby. She refuses to raise it and refuses to go along with Tony’s mother’s plan to raise the child.

After giving Tony an ultimatum, Eilis returns to Ireland to visit her aging mother, who has become no less intolerable during Eilis’ absence. She plans to have her children join her for her mother’s birthday celebration.

Eilis will, of course, encounter Jim. The novel’s drama comes from the choices Eilis must make — return to America and Tony, stay in Ireland with Jim, or return to America with Jim. Jim hasn’t stopped thinking about Eilis since she returned to America, but would he abandon his marriage plans with Nancy to be with Eilis? Would Eilis leave her family in America to be with Jim? The novel builds tension as it seems inevitable that Eilis and/or Nancy will learn that Jim has not been honest with either of them.

This sounds like a soap opera plot, and maybe it is, but Long Island is a character-driven novel that takes a deep dive into personalities that have been shaped by culture and family. Tóibín addresses the restrained emotional turmoil of his characters without resorting to contrivances.

The novel explores the relationship histories of Jim and Nancy as well as their relationship with each other. In a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone else, they have been surprisingly successful at keeping their late-night visits a secret. Yet secrets will out. Jim doesn’t want Nancy to know that she is his backup plan if he can’t convince Eilis to leave Tony. Nor does he want Eilis to know that he is sleeping with Nancy. In such a small community, is there any hope that Jim’s secrets will not be discovered?

Jim’s secrecy is motivated in part by the knowledge that Nancy will be subject to gossip if it becomes known that he left her for Eilis. The destructive nature of gossip and the impossibility of keeping secrets in a small Irish village was an important theme in Brooklyn that Tóibín reprises in the sequel.

Tóibín also illustrates how people in relationships attempt to manipulate each other. Nancy, for example, wants to sell the chip shop and become a homemaker after she marries Jim, but she schemes to influence Jim with subtle suggestions until he believes the idea is his own. At the same time, characters are afraid to say what they are thinking, perhaps for fear of another person’s reaction, perhaps because they fear the consequences of speaking their desires into reality. The story ends with a dramatic act of manipulation that different readers might judge in different ways.

The novel’s other key relationship is Eilis’ with her mother. For twenty years, her mother never acknowledged the pictures that Eilis sent of her children. When she arrives in Ireland, her mother doesn’t want to hear anything about her life in America. Yet Eilis’ mother has always nurtured a hidden pride in the grandchildren she never met, even if she has bottled up her emotions and refuses to share them with her daughter. After Eilis’ mother meets her grandchildren, she believes it is her right to turn her daughter’s life upside down.

My first takeaway from Long Island in conjunction with Brooklyn is that every choice we make gives birth to a potential regret about the choice we didn’t make. Or if not regret, at least curiosity about the path life might have taken if we had chosen differently.

My second takeaway is that no matter how we try to make choices that shape our lives, other people make their own choices that alter the course we have planned. We may or may not have the courage or strength to resist those choices. The choices made by others may take on an irresistible force. The inability to take complete control of our destiny might turn out to be a surprising joy or a dreadful peril, but either way, Long Island makes clear that it is a reality of life. As always, Tóibín’s powerful illustration of great truths makes Long Island a captivating novel.

RECOMMENDED

Long Island is a sequel to Colm Toibin's beloved Brooklyn and having been a fan of that novel, I was eager for the follow up. I would recommend that readers either read or re-read Brooklyn before going into this book. You would get a lot more out of Eilis' story in Long Island if you remember her more vividly of how she used to be as a young woman just starting out. In many ways, middle aged Eilis has retained a lot of the qualities that made her so endearing as a young woman. But you also see all the subtle ways her view of the world and how she conducts herself has changed now that she is a mother of two and married. Toibin's prose and characterizations are as beautiful as ever. Eilis was never a perfect person and sometimes she made questionable decisions, both in her 20s and now. But she always felt human and complex and it was a pleasure to be reunited with her again.

I have loved Brooklyn since I bought it based off the pretty cover at the Borders “going out of business” sale in high school. Unfortunately, this sequel let me down. Eilis would always deal with disappointment in some form in her marriage to Tony. This much of Long Island’s story is very believable based on Brooklyn. However, Long Island lacked the characterization of the grown-up Eilis and Tony to help me understand why they make the decisions they do as adults and parents. Toibin’s writing is always beautiful, but I had a hard time understanding his characters’ motivations in this novel, making them seem callous and unfeeling, a disappointing realization about characters you love.