It’s been fifteen years since the publication of Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín’s award-winning novel of tangled relationships and thwarted love.

That novel saw his central character — the gentle, passive Eilis Lacey — turn her back on small-town Ireland and return to her new life (and husband) in Brooklyn. In her wake she leaves a trail of gossip and disappointment in the town of Enniscorthy, County Wexford. All her mother’s hopes that Eilis would stay and settle down with local lad Jim Farrell came to nothing. Because, after all, Eilis had turned out to be already married in America.

Long Island picks up the story 20 years later, with Eilis now the mother of two children and settled into life as part of the extended Italian-American Fiorello family. Her husband Tony’s parents and brothers live in the same cul-de-sac on Long Island. Though Eilis often feels constrained by their proximity and irritated by the noisy banter of Sunday lunch en masse, generally they’re all one big happy family.

Or so it appears until one day when an Irishman comes knocking on her door. His wife is pregnant and Tony is the father, he announces to Eilis. He is adamant that he will not raise this child in his family — it will be up to the Fiorelli family to take care of the baby.

Maybe in the past Eilis would have just gone along with the plan and accepted her husband’s illegitimate child. But she’s grown up since the days of Brooklyn; no longer meek and passive; no longer willing to keep silent. Her message to Tony (and his mother) is loud and clear:

Tony’s infidelity is the first of many secrets and silences we encounter in this novel. More examples await Eilis when she makes her next move.

She desperately needs someone to talk to, someone with whom to discuss her anger and feelings of betrayal. But she realises that in America, she has no-one. Surrounded by people, she still feels alone.

Escape to Ireland

So she escapes — returning to the place where she once felt at home to Enniscorthy. Ostensibly she’s going to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday though neither Eilis, nor her children, know whether they will ever return to Long Island.

This decision gets her out of one mess only to land her in another. In alternating narrative points of view, If she thought she was just going to pick up the pieces of her old life, Tóibín shows just how wrong she can be. People in Enniscorthy have moved on; building their own lives in the twenty years since Eilis was last in town.

Her childhood friend Nancy now owns a chip shop on the square; run ragged by unruly customers and hostile neighbours. Just across the road, Jim Farrell has taken over his family’s pub, proving to be a very adept landlord and businessman. The pair have become so close that an engagement in the offing though for now they’re keeping this a secret.

Tóibín astutely cranks up the tension in narrative points of view that switch between Eilis, Nancy and Jim. It all becomes rather tangled. Jim clearly still holds a torch for Eilis. Does he get the girl this time or will Eilis sail off to America again. Will Nancy get to walk down the aisle or will Jill call the whole thing off at the last moment?

Just as in Brooklyn, there’s a “will she/won’t she” element to the plot of Long Island. Jim clearly still holds a torch for Eilis. Will he get the girl this time or will Eilis leave him dangling again while she sails off to New York? And what about Nancy? Does she get to walk up the aisle or will Jim call the whole thing off at the last minute?
The ending isn’t a complete resolution so I suspect we have not heard the last of Eilis Fiorelli. There must surely be a sequel?

I hope so, particularly if it takes us back to Enniscorthy and the inhabitants who leap off the page. Though Eilis, Jim and Nancy form the emotional heart of the story they’re surrounded by a strong supporting cast.

Chief among them is Eilis’s mother. She’s become more strong willed in old age, adamantly refusing to accept Eilis’s changes to her home and decisively dismissing the workmen who turn up to install the new kitchen appliances. While she loves to show off her smartly-dressed daughter, she still makes the girl feel guilty for leaving her alone all those years ago. And yet we see that her stubbornness and and abrasiveness masks a vulnerability. Like much else within the novel there are gaps between what a person says and what they actually feel.

Long Island is an emotionally powerful novel yet it’s also very subtle; leaving the reader to work out what is being unsaid. Tóbin has now set five novels in Enniscorthy, in County Wexford, Ireland, weaving characters from one novel to another. I hope he continues to mine this rich vein of stories in future novels.

Footnotes – Colm Tóibín and Enniscorthy

If Long Island whetted your appetite, take a look at Tóibín’s other novels set in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, the small irish town where he was born.

The Heather Blazing (1992)

The Blackwater Lightship (1999)

Brooklyn (2009),

Nora Webster (2014) 

In an interview for the OprahDaily website, Tóibín described why the town means so much to him.

I see the town almost as a living thing, as though it can breathe and wake and sleep. And it is as if the people in Enniscorthy mix and mingle under a dome or in a bubble. If one person falls in love or goes to the pub, or if there is a big wedding, then it is never just an individual act. It is oddly communal and shared even, strangely, by those who might have left the town and gone to live elsewhere.