What readers think of Brooklyn, plus links to write your own review.

Eilis (pr. “eye-lish”) Lacy studies bookkeeping at a vocational school in her small hometown of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, where she lives with her mother and her sister, Rose. Set in the years following World War II, however, employment opportunities are scarce, not only in Enniscorthy but throughout Ireland. With help from Father Flood, an Irish priest based in Brooklyn, USA, during a visit to Enniscorthy, and with encouragement from Rose, her older sister, Eilis sails for America, where lodging and a job at a Brooklyn department store await her.

Tóibín’s flowing narrative vividly brings to life Eilis’s life in Ireland and, later, her first impressions of Brooklyn, her work at the department store, her study of American accountancy, and her developing romantic relationship with Tony, whom she meets at a dance, one of four brothers in an Italian immigrant family. Tragic news from Enniscorthy, however, brings Eilis back to Ireland, where complications and contradictions create new challenges that force decisions in her life.

Tóibín delivers well-rounded protagonists, cleverly and authentically blending the predictable and the planned with the doubt and surprise that their young lives encounter, as they navigate their own emotions and perspectives, threading their way, sometimes cautiously, sometimes not, through the many turns their lives throw at them, whether by their own emotions or desires or by the world in which they both move.

Brooklyn is the first book in the Eilis Lacey series by award-winning Irish author, Colm Toibin. The youngest child of Enniscorthy’s Lacey family, Eilis has watched her brothers depart for Birmingham and a better chance at employment, while she and her widowed mother depend on her older sister, Rose’s wage. So when Mrs Kelly offers Eilis work in her shop, she can’t refuse the chance to help her family out financially.

Mrs Kelly’s petty prejudices make for entertaining dinner conversation, but when Father Flood, visiting from Brooklyn, suggests that her talents for bookkeeping will be more appreciated in his parish, Rose and her brothers make it happen. Those around her are excited for this opportunity, but Eilis dreads the idea that she will lose this world forever, that “she would never have an ordinary day again in this ordinary place, that the rest of her life would be a struggle with the unfamiliar”.

And she realises that, by sending her to America, Rose is sacrificing any chance of marrying and having a family, knowing she will be needed to care for their mother. “She wondered if her mother too believed that the wrong sister was leaving.”

After a none-too-pleasant week on a steamer, Eilis is in Brooklyn, living with five other lodgers in Mrs Kehoe’s boarding house, and working on the shop floor at the Bertocci & Co. Department store. The philosophy of her new employer is a refreshing change from Mrs Kelly’s treatment of customers: “We treat everyone the same. We welcome every single person who comes into this store. They all have money to spend. We keep our prices low and our manners high.”

And their attitude to their staff: “The only way for the customers to be happy is for the staff to be happy” means that the homesickness her brother Jack warned her of in very vague terms is met with sympathy and a practical solution.

While she has made no friends, either amongst her fellow lodgers, at work, or at her night classes, Father Flood’s Friday night dances see young man (not Irish) interested. Eilis isn’t wholly sure about the developing relationship, and when a family crisis calls her back to Enniscorthy, familiarity, and the attentions of an eligible young man from her past, tempt her, requiring a choice…

In every paragraph, and with exquisite prose, Toibin captures the nineteen-fifties with consummate ease: the setting, the numerous cultural references (fashion, food, music, movies, sport) and the attitudes, the mindset of the communities, all virtually shout out the era. This is a story that will resonate strongly with readers of a certain vintage, yet can’t help having a wider appeal. His protagonist is a complex young woman and it will be interesting to revisit her in the sequel, Long Island.