Back from Brooklyn: Colm Tóibín's Long Island
25 years after the events of Brooklyn, Eilis Lacey has integrated to American life successfully, but faces a crisis in consequence of her husband's infidelity, a crisis that propels her home to Enniscorthy. Guest Matthew Ryan, a specialist in Modern Literature at the Australian Catholic University with an expertise in Tóibín's work, stresses that Eilis is a more assertive character than we meet in Brooklyn. But can we ever go home? Much has changed. Eilis attempts to revive old relationships, unaware of complications that have arisen in her absence, leading host Chris Murray to wonder whether the migrant character can treat multiple locations as fully real, or always treats one place as a dream. Yet the locals can be selfish too, with characters like the disappointed Jim Farrell and widowed Nancy Sheridan identifying each other as means to their own self-transformation. Small-town Ireland is a place in which characters feel watched, and Tóibín's cast agonises over whether their desires are respectable. For this reason, what is unsaid is vitally important in Tóibín's work, and his characters' paralysis looks back to writers like James Joyce: Chris and Matt ask whether Tóibín indicates an essentially Irish condition.
Contains spoilers.
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