"Long Island" by Colm Toibin

 This sequel to Brooklyn starts with a huge and brilliant hook when Irish Eilis is told by a cuckold that her husband has impregnated his wife and he intends to abandon the baby on her doorstep. Determined that she will not bring up the child of another woman, Eilis returns to her hometown in Ireland for the first time in twenty years and encounters Jim Farrell,  the man she abandoned. He's still single though having an affair with now widowed Nancy who had been best friend to Eilis. Will Jim and Eilis get together again? Or will she return to Long Island where her Italian-American husband, Tony, is waiting?

The situation is full of tremendous tensions. In Long Island Tony's family (parents, brothers and sisters-in-law) all live on the same street, making Irish Eilis an outsider. The Irish setting is even more claustrophobic: everyone seems to know the everyone else; it is difficult to keep secrets and the past is always there to haunt you. It's a recipe for emotional turmoil.

Perhaps because it would be so easy to slip into melodrama, Toibin plays it cool. Close to the end, someone tells Jim Farrell: "You seem very matter-of-fact for a man who's just got engaged." (7iii). In fact, every character seems to treat their predicament as an intellectual exercise: their options are carefully delineated. But no-one seems to feel anything. Their heads are engaged but not their hearts. 

For example: "And how would he live knowing that he had betrayed Nancy? How could he coldly inform her that he did not want to be with her? That was one side of the scales. The other was a question that was starker and more pressing: how could he let this chance to be with Eilis slip by?" (5iii)

New writers are told to 'show, don't tell' but Toibin's characters tell you everything they are thinking about, in simple, declarative sentences.

Looking back at my review for Brooklyn, I see that I said: "Eilis had a very pedestrian inner life as well. Every dilemma she faced was spelt out clearly. This actually was a brilliant feature of the book because it made you follow her uncertainties. Did she love the boy or not? Even at the end you're not exactly sure but isn't that the way we all are? We weigh up our options (perhaps a little less cold-bloodedly than Eilis) based on our perceptions (which are perhaps a little less clear than Eilis) and we come to a conclusion which we will never know is right or wrong and which we might in any case change later on down the line. This was a tremendous strength of the book." I'm revising that opinion. The words 'cold-blooded' and 'clear' are key. All three of the main characters - Eilis, Jim and Nancy - saw things too clearly (except for what the plot didn't permit them to see at all) and weigh up their options too cold-bloodedly. I was alienated by their levels of detachment. I was unable to empathise with the main characters and consequently I was bored. It was obvious that the plot was slowly - so slowly - leading up to a showdown but rather than waiting for the crisis with bated breath, I was wishing to get it over with. 

Toibin has also written (reviewed in this blog):

• The Story of the Night: A gay man grows up in an Argentina under the rule of a military dictatorship. I noted "a very staid prose style with short, mostly declarative sentences. It's very realistic and quite addictive"
• House of Names: A version of the Oresteiad. I thought the plot had been "emasculated" but thought it "beautifully written"
• The Testament of Mary: the elderly Virgin Mary reflects upon her life: I loved this and noted "the perfection of the prose".

So I'm inconsistent! Mostly,  like Toibin's style. But not this time. It was just too much. I wasn't engaged. I was bored.

July 2025; 287 pages

Published by Picador in 2024.

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God