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I watched the movie adaptation of Brooklyn first, then read the book, and immediately followed it with Long Island.

15 years have elapsed, and Toibin’s writing has undeniably matured. The narrative's pacing is more concise. While Brooklyn primarily employs a singular perspective, Long Island shifts between multiple viewpoints. Particularly compelling are the varied perspectives of 3 main characters on shared events and scenes, which lend the narrative greater depth and dimension. They move like 3 beams of light in the night, occasionally intersecting, occasionally diverging. These moments of convergence are especially captivating in this novel.

In Long Island, Eilis has spent over 20 peaceful years in Brooklyn - her daughter about to start college and her son in high school. Her husband Tony is a plumber with modest earnings, and his brother Frank often supports their family. It seems Italians maintain close-knit families wherever they go. Although Eilis enjoys solitude, she tries to integrate into her husband's family, dealing with in-laws and relatives.

Potential Spoilers Ahead!

The story begins when Eilis's homeland informs her that her husband and his wife are having an affair, and that the wife is pregnant. He won't tolerate the child in his home and plans to drop the baby at Eilis’s doorstep once it’s born.

Apparently, Eilis is the last in the family to learn about the affair. Her mother-in-law plans to adopt the child, which Eilis cannot accept. As her long-widowed mother’s 80th birthday approaches, Eilis decides to return to Ireland under the guise of celebrating. Her last visit was 25 years ago when she almost stayed with bar owner Jim but fled back to Brooklyn due to unforeseen circumstances without a word of explanation.

Long Island unfolds through the perspectives of 3 characters: Eilis, Jim, and Nancy. Nancy was once Eilis's best friend. When Eilis last visited, Nancy was dating and about to marry George, a grocer. After George passed away while their children were still young, Nancy turned the groceries store into a chip shop. Operating late into the night, the chip shop disturbed nearby residents, produced smoke, and attracted drunks. Nancy not only had to deal with people who hated the chip shop but also fend off drunken customers knocking on the door after closing. Hardened by life, her only comfort was secretly dating Jim. They planned to announce their engagement after Nancy’s daughter’s wedding.

Eilis’s return changes everything. From an outsider’s perspective, it’s clear that all 3 adults want to escape their predetermined life paths: Eilis wants to avoid the reality of her husband's illegitimate child entering her family; Jim wants to end his monotonous life as a bar owner; Nancy wants to shut down the chip shop and move to the countryside, away from prying eyes.

Every subtle thought and action sends ripples through their lives. In the midst of this complexity, only Eilis's mother sees everything clearly. Many interesting details involve the old lady: she initially refuses the kitchen appliances Eilis buys her, only to hastily install them before Eilis’s children arrive. She pretends not to care about Eilis's letters and photos over the years, but she has meticulously read and interpreted the unspoken words in the photos. The progression of the story is driven by the determination of women: Eilis, her mother-in-law, her mother, and Nancy. In contrast, men like Tony and even Jim, although they initiate some actions, are not the ones to conclude matters. Toibin seems to suggest that men are often unreliable.

I really love how Toibin focuses on characters struggling and wavering between home and away. In Brooklyn, Eilis's initial arrival in Brooklyn was shrouded in uncertainty, yet beautiful and dazzling like a diamond. Her second departure was a choice made after recognizing the confinement of her current situation and the expansiveness of the other shore.

The ending of the movie Brooklyn is truly inspiring. Upon her return journey to America, Eilis has undergone a significant transformation. Now a seasoned traveler, she shares her insights with a young girl embarking on her first voyage to America, saying: "You’ll feel so homesick that you’ll want to die, and there’s nothing you can do about it besides endure it. But you will, and it won’t kill you. And one day, the sun will come out. You might not even notice right away, it’ll be that faint. And then you’ll catch yourself thinking about something or someone who has no connection with the past. Someone who’s only yours. And you’ll realize that this is where your life is."

Each move, a journey; each beach, a chapter. From the vibrant pulse of her homeland's celebration to the quiet cadence of a foreign gathering, from the sun-warmed sands of her past to the uncharted shores of her present, home became a memory, and the foreign, a reflection of a newly forged self .

4.6 / 5 stars