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Long Island
By Colm Toibin
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Table of Contents
About The Book
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Stunning.” —People * “Dazzling yet devastating...Tóibín is simply one of the world’s best living literary writers.” —The Boston Globe * “Momentous and hugely affecting.” —The Wall Street Journal *
From the beloved, critically acclaimed, bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving novel featuring Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work in twenty years.
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis is now forty with two teenage children. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.
One day, when Tony is at work an Irishman comes to the door asking for Eilis by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting and suspenseful.
Long Island is a gorgeous story “about a woman thrashing against the constraints of fate” (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air). It is “a wonder, rich with yearning and regret” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis).
From the beloved, critically acclaimed, bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving novel featuring Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work in twenty years.
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis is now forty with two teenage children. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.
One day, when Tony is at work an Irishman comes to the door asking for Eilis by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting and suspenseful.
Long Island is a gorgeous story “about a woman thrashing against the constraints of fate” (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air). It is “a wonder, rich with yearning and regret” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis).
About The Author
Photograph by Reynaldo Rivera
Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah’s Book Club Pick; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and has been named as the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (May 7, 2024)
- Length: 304 pages
- ISBN13: 9781476785110
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Raves and Reviews
Praise for Long Island
"I was captivated. A wonderful page-turner to start your summer reading.” —Oprah Winfrey
“A brilliant novel. Beautifully crafted… makes for a riveting, wonderful read.” —Elizabeth Strout, The Guardian
“Eilis is an interesting and vivid character because she manages to make her destiny her choice... In her own mind, and in the eyes of sympathetic readers, she is free.” —New York Times Book Review
“Deeply felt but resolutely unsentimental… Tóibín uses masterly restraint to dramatize how lives can be destabilized by desire.” —The New Yorker
“Stunning.” —People
"Tóibín, a master of his art, exploits to exquisite effect at the end, leaving us to wonder, yet again, what’s next.” —Los Angeles Times
“Momentous and hugely affecting. These pendant novels, will be the fiction for which this wonderful writer is best remembered.” —Wall Street Journal
"Tóibín has created a novel not to be missed.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Rich and doubly suspenseful… Tóibín, a master of his art, exploits to exquisite effect at the end, leaving us to wonder, yet again, what’s next.” —Los Angeles Times
“Dazzling yet devastating… Tóibín is simply one of the world’s best living literary writers…” —The Boston Globe
"Entrancing... riveting from the first page." —The Economist
“About secrets and dreams and the conflict of desire over duty… Long Island is a wonder, rich with yearning and regret.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Tóibín’s storytelling is rich and full of tension as he explores the complexities of life, the decisions we make, and the consequences that result.” —Glamour
“The quiet, moving story is told from the perspectives of different characters, each with a heartbreaking inability to express what they truly desire.” —AARP
“Fifteen years ago, Colm Tóibín won readers’ hearts with his best-selling novel Brooklyn. Now, with the sequel, Long Island, he just might break them… Tóibín writes beautifully about the struggle between the comfort of the familiar and the hope for something better.” —Columbia Magazine
“Tóibín’s latest sees the return of one of his most beloved heroines from his novel Brooklyn and deftly explores the longings of a woman who finds herself alone in her tilted marriage.” —The Chicago Review of Books
“A close observer of human nature, Tóibín writes with great depth of longing… Often it is what is unsaid, contained in the pauses, that grips the reader’s attention. There is plenty of beauty to savor.” —BookPage
“Quietly devastating… Tóibín is brilliant at tallying the weight of what goes unsaid between people… Tóibín’s mastery is on full display here.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Tóibín writes with unparalleled fluidity and grace. Each character is intricately drawn with psychological acuity, emerging as fully, almost achingly human. Eilis is complicated, fearless, and compelling, much like her brilliant creator.” —Booklist, STARRED review
“Eilis’ fate is determined in a plot twist worthy of Edith Wharton…the author is a master of quiet, restrained prose, calmly observing the mores and mindsets of provincial Ireland. A moving portrait of rueful middle age and the failure to connect.” —Kirkus, STARRED review
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): Long Island Hardcover 9781476785110
- Author Photo (jpg): Colm Toibin Photograph by Reynaldo Rivera(0.1 MB)
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