Long Island
Colm Toibin returns to Eilis Lacey, the heroine of his beloved novel Brooklyn, two decades later. It is the 1970s, and Eilis is living on Long Island with her Italian American husband Tony, their two teenage children, and his close-knit family next door. Then an Irishman appears at her door to tell her that Tony has fathered a child with his wife, and that he intends to leave the baby on Eilis's doorstep. The news pushes Eilis back to Ireland and the town she left, where old loves and old questions are waiting. Quiet and precise, the novel follows a woman forced to decide what kind of life she actually wants.
What you might want to know about Long Island
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Twenty years after Brooklyn, Eilis Lacey's settled suburban life cracks open when a stranger arrives with news of her husband's affair.
Yes. Long Island continues the story of Eilis Lacey from Colm Toibin's novel Brooklyn, picking up about twenty years later in the 1970s.
It helps but is not required. Long Island gives enough background to follow on its own, though readers of Brooklyn will feel the history between the characters more deeply.
Long Island was written by Colm Toibin, published in 2024 by Scribner.
Long Island is 304 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Long Island takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Long Island is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
