Read by Jessie Buckley
9 hours, 40 minutes
Published May 2024 by Scribner
Publisher's Summary:
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony's parents, a huge extended family. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis is now forty with two teenage children. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.
One day, when Tony is at work an Irishman comes to the door asking for Eilis by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis's doorstep. It is what Eilis does-and what she refuses to do-in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín's novel so riveting and suspenseful.
My Thoughts:
I was first introduced to Colm Toibin when I read his book, Brooklyn, and it was there that readers first met Eilis Lacey and Tony Fiorello. I looked back at my review to that book to see if my feelings now about that book mirrored what I'd felt about it when I first finished reading it. They did. But I found something interesting in that review. I remarked that: Time moves at quite a pace in Brooklyn; Toibin bypasses long periods of time between episode and vignettes. Here, it felt very much the opposite. This is not a book that spans years, but rather weeks. But things also remain very much the same: Nothing showy or lush about Brooklyn. All of the emotion is just under the surface and yet it is palpable and the characters are believable and realistic.
What would you do if you found yourself in Eilis' position? She has told Tony she will, under no circumstances, raise his child by another woman and she does not want it raised in the family. Unable to get confirmation from Tony that she won't have to see the child, she leaves for Ireland, ostensibly for her mother's upcoming 80th birthday. Although she hasn't been home in decades, there's a part of Eilis that longs for the place where she most comfortable; it certainly isn't on Long Island, surrounded by her Tony's extended Italian family where she still feels like something of an outsider.
All of that contributes to what happens in Ireland when Eilis is encounters Jim, the man she fell in love with when she was last in Ireland and whom she left behind to return to Tony (who she was already secretly married to). Once again Eilis is torn between the settled life she has and the dream of a deep love she finds in Ireland. What might happen between Eilis and Jim is complicated by the fact that Jim is already engaged to one of Eilis' old friends and the arrival of Eilis' children, who have never met their Irish grandmother.
There are a lot of twists and turns to this one and it is, to a great extent less about Eilis than was Brooklyn. Still, I enjoyed getting to know Jim and Nancy better and to get an even better look at Eilis' relationship with her mother. We spend a lot of time wondering if Eilis will, once again, return to Tony or will, this time, stay in Ireland. Still trying to process how I feel about the end of the book and if you look at other reviews, you'll find I'm not alone.
I very much liked that Nora Webster (of Toibin's title by the same name) appears in this book, as Eilis' mother did in that book. Jessie Buckley's reading of Long Island is spectacular. I highly recommend listening to this one. Like Brooklyn, this one would make a good book club selection, as there is a lot to process here. It's appearing on "Best of 2024" lists, although, to be honest, I'm not sure it will make mine. I'm sure that has more to do with me than others giving Toibin the accolades he deserves for his body of work.
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