Colm Tóibín: Long Island

A man with an Irish accent knocks on Eilis Fiorello’s door on Long Island and in that moment everything changes. Eilis and Tony have built a secure, happy life here since leaving Brooklyn – perhaps a little stifled by the in-laws so close, but twenty years married and with two children looking towards a good future.

And yet this stranger will reveal something that will make Eilis question the life she has created. For the first time in years she suddenly feels very far from home and the revelation will see her turn towards Ireland once again. Back to her mother. Back to the town and the people she had chosen to leave behind. Did she make the wrong choice marrying Tony all those years ago? Is it too late now to take a different path?

‘You don’t have to have read Brooklyn to enjoy the many pleasures of Long Island. It is a masterful novel full of longing and regret. A tale of lovers reconnecting, of compromise, and the settling that can come later in life. Intensely moving and yet full of restraint, I was sad to turn the final page.’ Douglas Stuart

‘Heartbreak, wistfulness, cracking dialogue… This is Tóibín at his best.’ The Times

‘His best yet… It reads like the tensest of stage plays, but with all the pleasures of interiority that the novel form allows. I haven’t wanted to hug this many characters in a while.’ Naoise Dolan