In the same tradition as I pursued for Margaret Atwood's "MaddAddam" trilogy, and then for her The Handmaid's Tale successor (The Testaments), it was a pleasure to reread Brooklyn as a prelude to Long Island. A fifteen-year gap between the two works made the experience all the more enjoyable, akin to encountering a once fondly remembered friend after a period of absence. Tóibín owes a major literary debt to Henry James, although (re-reading) this pair of novels also put me in mind of Edith Wharton. The commonality across all three writers would be the stylistic thoughtfulness applied to sentence construction, the switching between interior and exterior states. At the heart of Tóibín's works is the concept of having to live with the choices you've made, even if they may have been the wrong ones. Actions have consequences and relationships (can) change. How well do we ever truly know someone else and what they want? These perennial considerations sit at the heart of Brooklyn/Long Island. The novels as a pair represent coming of age and having a possible second chance. In both, the contrast between rural Ireland and cosmopolitan New York is stark. Tóibín also leaves open the possibility for a third work, a follow-up. I would happily read it. Some may criticise the heroine, Eilis Lacey, for being too passive and for letting things happen to her, but in neither Brooklyn nor Long Island did I have any sense of the reveal. Tóibín is masterful when it comes to keeping the reader in suspense and modulating the pace appropriately throughout. There is little more one might want from a novelist.
By Colm Tóibín