Long Island by Colm Tóibín

In this book Tóibín takes us back to his real home town of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, Ireland and he also takes us back to Eilis and her life 20 years after 'Brooklyn' ends. Back then, in the 1950s, Enniscorthy has little to offer the novel’s very young, soft-spoken but increasingly confident heroine whose older sister encourages her to go to America, where she meets and falls in love with Tony. Eilis is now in her 40s, the mother of two teenagers. She and Tony live on Long Island, in an enclave of private houses, all built for and inhabited by Tony’s very Italian family. Eilis has a keen emotional intelligence and independence of spirit, along with a deep love for her children. Her relationship with Tony fluctuates over the years, but she considers it solid. All that is disrupted when Tony reveals a secret that throws Eilis off her axis and she returns to Ireland to see her mother. She goes home and while she finds herself pining for the days of her youth, she is also arriving in the midst of her old flame Jim being on the verge of marrying the widow he has been seeing in secret. So much was left unsaid but the passions of youth run deep.