Brooklyn
Colm Toibin
A devastating story of love, loss and one woman's terrible choice between duty and personal freedom. Fall in love with Brooklyn ahead of its bestselling follow-up, Long Island.
It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go, leaving behind her family and her home for the first time.
Arriving in a crowded lodging house in Brooklyn, Eilis can only be reminded of what she has sacrificed. She is far from home - and homesick. And just as she takes tentative steps towards friendship, and perhaps something more, Eilis receives news which sends her back to Ireland.
There she will be confronted by a terrible dilemma - a devastating choice between duty and one great love.
***
'With this elating and humane novel, Colm Tóibín has produced a masterwork' Sunday Times
'Unforgettable' Spectator
'The most compelling and moving portrait of a young woman I have read in a long time' Zoë Heller, Guardian
'Magnificent' Sunday Telegraph
The book that inspired the major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan.
Product Details
About Colm Toibin
Reviews for Brooklyn
Sunday Times
The most compelling and moving portrait of a young woman I have read in a long time
Zoë Heller
Guardian, Books of the Year
A work of such skill, understatement and sly jewelled merriment could haunt your life
Ali Smith
TLS, Books of the Year
Suffused with humane depth, funny, affecting, deftly plotted ... a novel of magnificent accomplishment
Peter Kemp
Sunday Times, Novel of the Year
Brooklyn moved me more than any other book this year
Nicholas Hytner
Observer, Books of the Year
A beautifully crafted work that transformed ordinary lives into something extraordinary
Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
No book this year gave me greater pleasure
Nell Freudenberger
Financial Times
Not a sentence or a thought out of place. It takes over as his finest ficiton to date
Irish Times
Remarkable freshness and immediacy ... with a lovely comedic lightness
Daily Mail
A lovely, thoughtful book ... alive with authentic detail, moved along by the ripples of affection and doubt that shape any life: a novel that offers the reader serious pleasure
Daily Telegraph
Tremendously moving and powerful
New Statesman
Full of sly fun, lovely comic observation and an almost tangible pleasure in storytelling
Observer
Refreshingly authentic . . . Eilis is so vivid it's difficult to believe she did not actually exist
Financial Times