Brooklyn
by Colm Tóibín
2009 / 282 pages
read by KIrsten Potter 7h 37m
rating – 8  / contemp fiction

This is the reread of a book I first read probably in about 2010,  when the paperback  was first published.  I wasn’t all that impressed at the time and although I’ve read all of Tóibín’s books since,  only Nora Webster really makes me sit up.  It’s okay though.

On the second reading,  the setting of   Brooklyn in the early 1950s and through the eyes of a young Irish immigrant girl is really the most  interesting part.  On my first reading I was s0 involved  with the characters and the slowly developing plot that I kind of missed the wonderful way Tóibín has with sights and sounds of a mid-century Brooklyn.

The plot:    In accord with her family’s wishes,  Eilis  (Eye-lish) Lacey has come to New York from a tight-knit family and  a close community.  She leaves her sister Rose to care for their widowed mother.  Actually,  Rose is denied the opportunity Eilis doesn’t really want,  so Eilis expects herself to do well.  And she has the assistance of the kindly and visiting American Catholic Father Flood who relocated years prior.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>