LONG ISLAND by Colm Tóibín — reviewed by Stella
An unexpected knock on the door brings an unwelcome stranger conveying news that Eilis can hardly believe. It’s 1976 and Eilis Lacey lives in Long Island with her husband, Tony, and their two teenage children, surrounded by his Italian family. Eilis has found a way to belong in this forthright family and has even eked out a little independence with a part-time office job. Falling into middle age, her marriage is comfortable and predictable. The news that arrives rocks her world to the core and unsettles her, reviving prejudices and doubts in her code of conduct and her expectations of others. Tony has fathered a child, not hers, and the baby when it is born is going to be deposited on the father and his family. Eilis won’t, unsurprisingly, have a bar of it, and decides she needs to get away. Her mother is turning eighty and this is a good enough reason as any to return to Ireland. As Tony, and particularly his mother, make plans for the forthcoming baby, Eilis finds herself cut out of any discussion or decision-making. Returning to her home village of Enniscorthy is hardly the escape she imagined. Nothing has changed. It is as stultifying as ever. The same preoccupations keep the rumour mill turning and the same prejudices about social class and morality persist. It may be 1970 everywhere else but here it could be the 1950s. Judgement, pettiness, and grudges circle under the everyday pleasantries. Yet despite this, it is here that Eilis will face her greatest challenge — being true to her feelings. Her love for Jim Farrell has been dormant all those years. When we leave Eilis in Brooklyn, she is running away, and in Long Island she is escaping again. Nothing is straightforward. Tóibín has a gift for capturing intimate relationships — their nuances, inconsistencies, and delusions. Under the seemingly benign runs a thread of tension. There is the obvious complication of Nancy, Eilis's former best friend, and her dreams of a better life out of the chip shop with the willing publican Jim. And then the problem of Tony and the children — can Eilis make a new life for herself in America? As the story progresses Eilis, Jim, and Nancy are on a collision course that can not be avoided. Yet Long Island is not merely driven by the captivating plot, it is a commentary on expectation and illusion, where everyone has their private dream, but no one is honest to each other nor themselves. Where social mores hold behaviour in check even in the most intimate moments. Brilliantly written with a deft touch, it is only at the end that the breath you have been holding will be exhaled, but only briefly.
We will be discussing Long Island in our online book group, Talking Books, on 9 July. Join us!