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| | Description | From the award-winning author of The Master, a hauntingly compelling novel—by far TÓibÍn’s most accessible book—set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s about a young woman torn between her family in Ireland and the american who wins her heart.Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled at bookkeeping, Eilis cannot find a proper job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn visits the household and offers to sponsor Eilis in America—to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"—she realizes she must go, leaving her fragile mother and sister behind. Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and studies accounting at Brooklyn College, and, when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian, slowly wins her over with persistent charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. Eilis is in love. But just as she begins to consider what this means, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her new life. With the emotional resonance of Alice McDermott’s At Weddings and Wakes, Brooklyn is by far TÓibÍn’s most inviting, engaging novel. | |
| | Product Details | | Author: | Colm Toibin | | Hardcover: | 262 pages | | Publisher: | Scribner | | Publication Date: | May 05, 2009 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 1439138311 | | Product Length: | 8.5 inches | | Product Width: | 5.7 inches | | Product Height: | 1.1 inches | | Product Weight: | 1.01 pounds | | Package Length: | 8.5 inches | | Package Width: | 5.5 inches | | Package Height: | 1.1 inches | | Package Weight: | 1.0 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 210 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 210 customer reviews )
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244 of 255 found the following review helpful:
 Don't give up on it--a provocative ending Mar 27, 2009
By switterbug
Reading Brooklyn was an unusual experience. Why? Because I had to read the whole book to appreciate it and be gripped by it. The book was like an embryo--rudimentary, unborn. But when I read the last paragraph, I actually got a spine chill. And, later, after shelving it, my thoughts wandered back to the story with a deeper pleasure.
For the first 100 (or more) pages, nothing much happens. Young provincial Irish girl Eilis Lacey travels to America(circa 1950), leaving her sister and mother in the Irish berg. She improves her education, her appearance, and refines her tastes. With the help of a family friend (a priest), Eilis finds a place to live in a rooming house and a tedious job in a clothing shop. She encounters new friends, (all rather shallow), meets a man, has a courtship. It is all very mundane. When she lies in bed after receiving a letter from home, she actually thinks about her mother or sister taking out the envelope, what kind of envelope, how many envelopes. I was exasperated at that point.
Yet I kept reading. Toibin is a competent writer, and I was at least partially engaged, although I remained skeptical of any interesting story emerging. You know how some authors fail to maintain control over their story and characters? Well, Toibin has perhaps too MUCH control. That is how it seemed as I was reading. It plodded along, but rather lightly. I did like Eilis and cared what happened to her, but I wanted something imaginative or inventive to occur. At least one splashy thing. But when something dramatic happened in the last 100 pages, it didn't really affect me too much. It seemed more of a vehicle for other action to take place, for Eilis to enter into decisive conflict and change.
It is so subtle and restrained that I almost didn't know when I became fully engaged. During the last portion of the book, I was in suspense, wondering what would happen, but speculating that it would be predictable.
Full resolution occurs in the final moments. That last paragraph was a titanic moment for me. It undid all my former expectations with its bittersweet irony and unpredictable ending. My three-star rating went up to four-stars. I finished this quick novel in two sittings, but the impact really begins at the end and continues to foment even after you are finished.
Don't give up on it even though it seems that nothing is happening. The whole is better than the sum of its parts--the end was arresting, even astonishing.
97 of 101 found the following review helpful:
Beautifully written novel about a young Irish immigrant Mar 30, 2009
By sb-lynn
Brief summary, no spoilers:
There are no explosions in this book. There are no murders, car chases, scenes with international espionage, or anything that would require its movie rendition to have special effects.
Instead, this beautifully written story is about a young girl named Eilis Lacey, who lives with her mother and with her attractive, vivacious sister Rose in a small town in Ireland. The time period is the 1950s. Eilis is smart and good with numbers but there is not much employment opportunity where she lives, so a priest with connections in both Ireland and New York gets her both boarding and a job in Brooklyn.
Needless to say, Eilis has to learn to live in a new culture and away from the only home she's ever known. Everything is so strange and new, but soon she meets a sweet young man named Tony and suddenly she begins to adjust and flourish.
This is the story of a young, immigrant girl learning to deal with change and adversity and how this makes her grow both intellectually and emotionally. It's also about dealing with disparate cultures, and having your heart and soul divided. Just what is "home?"
That this novel is written by a man is truly stunning - because Eilis comes alive from these pages and her thoughts and reactions generally rang true.
I also want to add that I could not stop reading towards the end because I just had to find out how this was all going to be resolved. And let's just say that this would make a very good novel for book clubs - there are going to be lots of different opinions on the denouement.
My only quibbles? I had trouble with the male characters, especially Tony. In many ways he didn't seem real to me, and if anything, too idealized. In many ways I wish this novel had been longer, and the relationships and personalities had been fleshed out more.
This is difficult to say without a spoiler, so I'll be careful not to - but as stunning as the ending is, I'm not sure it felt right to me. But then again, I'm not Eilis, I didn't grow up with her experiences, and maybe that's the whole point. (Hence, part of why this would be a good book for any book clubs.)
But I do highly recommend this book. Colm Toibin is one of my favorite writers, and he just writes beautifully.
44 of 47 found the following review helpful:
Small Lives Apr 30, 2009
By Charlus
"charlus"
Colm Toibin enters William Trevor territory with this lovely novel about an Irish immigrant's move to Brooklyn in post-World War II America. In spare unhurried prose he covers her experience with the departure from her limited world, a nightmarish crossing, learning to deal with a new job, night school, her boarding house acquaintances and new love.
Those looking for a speedy read will be frustrated by the measured pace of the incidents as well as their unremarkable nature. But in dwelling on the quotidian Toibin evokes an all enveloping reality of time and place and character.
Relationships aren't distorted for melodramatic ends as in "The Blackwater Lightship", nor is the book as moving or as intellectually and emotionally satisfying as his masterpiece "The Master". But this is as good an example of a writer's craft in creating a lived-in reality of small engrossing lives as one can find.
36 of 39 found the following review helpful:
 3 stars is a stretch Jul 03, 2009
By Solano
Spare, beautiful writing gives this novel three stars. But the story itself is so lacking in depth, with unrealized characters. Eilis, the protaganist, offers so much potential for the author to plumb the history of the immigrant -- their myriad reasons for coming here, the struggles to make it, the ties to their home country.
Instead, life basically happens to this girl, with no real effort or participation of her own. She doesn't desire to come to America but it's conveniently planned out for her (including a job and home for when she arrives), she doesn't fall in love but rather comes to accept the love of another. I kept waiting for her to grow into and express her own intentions, to make her own decisions, but alas, even the ending is simply an acceptance of circumstances.
There were several tangential characters (sister Rose, the department store manager, the professor) who pique interest. I would have enjoyed learning more about them, and their stories could have elevated this passive, unfulfilling journey.
25 of 29 found the following review helpful:
 Disappointing Sep 20, 2009
By Book Lover
This book hooked me right away; however, the more I read, the less I liked it. Eilis, the main character, seems to sleepwalk through life, unaware of or unconcerned by the ramifications of both her actions and her inactions! By the end of the book, her thoughtlessness and lack of honor had negated any empathy I might have had for her.
The author, Colm Tóibín, never achieves what one editorial review claims -- ... "a renewed understanding that to emigrate is to become a foreigner in two places at once." Nor does he evoke what the Washington Post review "the deep homesickness..." of Irish immigrants. Frankly, the main character, Eilis, never seems to care that much about home or Brooklyn. She seems to simply let things happen rather than accept responsibility and take action. Her lack of concern for everyone in her life -- family, friends, boy friends, employers, landlord, priest -- is appalling.
A great disappointment...
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