Colm Toibin's Brooklyn Insight Text Guides

Brooklyn is a 2009 novel by Irish author Colm Tóibín. It won the 2009 Costa Novel Award, was shortlisted for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of The 10 best historical novels. Eilis Lacey is a young woman who is unable to find work in 1950s Ireland. Her older sister Rose organizes a meeting with a Catholic priest Father Flood on a visit from New York City, who tells Eilis of the wonderful opportunities awaiting her in New York with excellent employment prospects. Because of this she emigrates to Brooklyn, New York and takes up a job in a department store while undertaking night classes in bookkeeping. Her initial experiences working in a boring job and living in a repressive boardinghouse, run by the strict Mrs Madge Kehoe, make her doubt her initial decision. Letters from Rose, her mother and her brother brought about severe homesickness but soon she begins to settle into a routine. Eilis meets and falls in love with a young Italian plumber called Tony at the local Friday night dances. This leads to her first sexual encounter and some social consequences as they are overheard by Mrs Kehoe. Eilis qualifies easily from her night school course. Her relationship evolves further and Tony proposes marriage and brings Eilis to meet his family.