Editors’ pick Best Literature & Fiction
Book 1 of 2: Eilis Lacey
Book Blurb:
A NEW PRODUCTION NARRATED BY SAOIRSE RONAN, ACADEMY AWARD–NOMINATED STAR OF THE 2015 FILM ADAPTATION!
Colm Tóibín’s New York Times bestselling novel—also an acclaimed film starring Saoirse Ronan and Jim Broadbent nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture—is “a moving, deeply satisfying read” (Entertainment Weekly) about a young Irish immigrant in Brooklyn in the early 1950s.
“One of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary literature” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.
Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.
My Review:
Unhappily, our Netflix doesn’t present the movie version of Brooklyn, and it sounds like the plot might have gotten ground a bit, skipping over the mundane. I might have preferred the movie.
I did, however, listen to the audiobook, and sorry (once again) of my inability to make those notes along the way on an audiobook. It does present a slow start, introducing Eilis Lacey and her life in small town fifties Ireland and that of her large Catholic family, an older sister and three brothers, the latter of whom all split for England and greater opportunity.
Eilis is facing that age when her reality is marriage and kids and longing for something more is asking the old familiar, “Is that all there is?”
No, not for her, as the family priest and her older working sister have arranged her sponsorship to Brooklyn, along with a room in a boarding house and a job in a department store. Her sister will take care of their mother, so off she goes.
The transition is not just from a small town to metropolis, Ireland to America, family to boarding house with a variety of cliquey boarders, singlehood to introduction to men. There is the shock of relocation, the homesickness, and the previous lack of adult decision making for herself.
The storyline is not new. We’ve been through this plot before but what sets it apart, of course, is the author’s prose, writing style, description of the era, and transition of old morals to modern. Yes, coming of age, right between the eyes.
As the narrative progresses, there are decisions to be made, back bone to be adjusted, and actions taken that with either choice will forever alter the life she had planned or expected.
Decisions, decisions…
The Italian American with the family making firm plans on advancement, all appearances looking upwardly mobile and a man who obviously adores her. Does she adore him back?
No.
Does she even love him? Did she get swept into another of those life-altering decisions without proper consideration? Yup.
Now, Ireland. She’s been called back. Her sister passed unexpectedly leaving no one to care for her mother. But…blue skies! There is the Irish man who adored her from afar—still available and now transformed with testosterone.
I thought it was no contest and I’m not a fan of the non-ending. So it was a romance. And conflict; eenie, meenie, miney, mo…
This one seemed to have the spectrum of reviews. Did you read it? How did you feel about it?
Best of all might be that it was on my list of Irish authors for this year’s Reading Ireland Month, the #Begorrathon, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books.
I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.
Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars 
Book Details:
Genre: Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-in Fiction, Coming of Age Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
ASIN: B0DGMPHMBF
Listening Length: 9 hrs 50 mins
Narrator: Saoirse Ronan
Publication Date: October 22, 2024
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
The Author: Colm Tóibín is the author of ten novels, including The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary, and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and has been named as the laureate for Irish fiction for 2022-2025 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Toibin lives in Dublin and New York.
©2025 V Williams
Rosepoint Publishing 