This is a sequel to Brooklyn which I’d read many years ago. But if you haven’t read it or seen the movie,  Long Island remains strong enough to stand on its own.

In the novel, Brooklyn it tells the story of Eilis Lacey who migrated from Ireland to New York, and married Tony Fiorello an Italian American.

Long Island is set twenty years later where she lives in a separate house in a cul-de-sac where Tony’s three brothers families and his parents also live. She has raised a son and daughter and while the extended family is suffocating and controlling, she has learned to live a good life.  That is until a man knocks on her door to tell her that Tony has had an affair with the man’s wife who is now pregnant. The man tells her that he will not raise the child and when the time comes, will leave the baby on her doorstep.

This event sets off a story of family, secrecy, misunderstanding and forbidden love. Eilis goes back to Ireland to see her mother and faces Jim, the man she abandoned twenty years earlier. The repercussions are complex.

The relationships are complicated and the twists are many as the reader navigates and judges what Eilis should do. Indeed we put ourselves in her place. Why doesn’t she just leave Tony? The family dynamics are so controlling she’ll be cast out. Yet she is clear, the baby has nothing to do with her.

And what of Jim? He is having a secret relationship with Nancy ready to finally marry after losing Eilis twenty years earlier. When he runs into her, the dynamics between them are riveting. Will she end up with him or not?

Toibin’s voice is  unusual and it takes a little while to get used to the flow and internal dialogue. Yet the narrative works and draws you into each character understanding their foibles and their own dilemmas.

There are many layers to this story but one thing is certain, you won’t be able to put this one down.