Brooklyn

Synopsis: 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.

Review: Having read and loved Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes's books I was looking forward to this one. I love a bit of literary Irish charm and humour.

It's quite an old fashioned story set in the 1950's about Eilis who emigrates to Brooklyn USA. Her family want a better life for her, and when Eilis takes a temporary job in a shop in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, alarm bells ring in the heads of her mother and sister, they want more for her than a life spent behind a shop counter and before Eilis knows it she is embarking on a journey that will take her to America.

At first she finds it hard to settle in, everything is new and strange to her and she doesn't make friends easily. And then she meets Tony. Tony is from Brooklyn but his parents are Italian, soon he and Eilis are meeting several times a week and becoming closer and closer, she's also studying hard for her book-keeping exams. But just as she begins to really settle and enjoy being in America, she receives terrible news from home.

I had a bit of trouble warming to Eilis, firstly her name,I couldn't think how to pronounce it, everytime I read it on the page I stumbled over it which got in the way of the text. I should have just googled it, I did when I was halfway through and found that it is pronounced Aylish (although there are variations) and I was happier once I'd got this into my brain. But also she seemed a bit of a cold fish, a bit wishy-washy. I was perplexed by some of her actions, she made me at times want to shake her to get her to wake up. No disrespect to Colm Tóibín but she seemed to be a female character that was definitely written by a man, in as much as her feelings seemed to run only so deep and no deeper, there was no fathoming her.

The story quietly hums along, it's not rivetting but it's very readable. It's a bit mundane in places, but Colm Toibin has a lovely descriptive style that seems to compensate for the lack of any real drama. At no point was I bored or wanting it to finish. I did feel though that some characters were not always fleshed out well, I wanted to know more about Eilis's sister Rose and her mam. However others, like Georgina who was only on the boat crossing, were fantastic (I'd love to have heard more from her) and there are some great gossipy characters.

It's a bit of a contradiction of a book, nothing much happens and it's quite a simple tale but it's still compelling.

I realise that this review sounds less than glowing and that's unfair to the book really because I did enjoy it, it kept me up late last night because I wanted to finish it. True to the rest of the story, there was no big ending and the temptation to throttle Eilis grew but it was consistent and oddly satisfying.