Author: Colm Toibin
Copyright 2009
Publisher: Scribner
Pages: 262
Rating: Nothing Better To Do
I picked Brooklyn up at my neighborhood little library the other afternoon. I hadn’t read a good fiction book in a while. I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for any book that has New York Bestseller on the cover with added points if the book has been made into a motion picture. Brooklyn had all this, and after a quick read on the back cover for the premise of the story, I tucked it in the crook of my arm and walked it home.
Synopsis
Brooklyn is set in the 1950’s and is the coming of age story set of Eilis Lacey, a girl that travels from Ireland to Brooklyn, New York in hopes to establishing more of a life than what was unfolding for her in hometown of Enniscorthy. Eilis is a bit of a wallflower, with no job prospects and no potential suitors knocking on her door. She lives with her mother and older sister, Rose. While Eilis is rather content with her current situation, her older sister Rose sees that her younger sister could have more added to her life, therefore reaching out to a family friend, Father Flood. Father Flood has a parish in Brooklyn and manages to secure passage, papers and a place of employment for Eilis should she decide to embark on the journey abroad. It seems though what Eilis thinks of the matter is of little importance as she soon finds herself on voyage to her new home in America with the arrangements made in full by Rose. Upon her arrival to Brooklyn, Eilis experiences living in a boarding house with other young unmarried women, learning the ropes at her new department store job, battling the surges of homesickness, and attending night courses at Brooklyn College for bookkeeping. Just when her life starts to take a familiar and satisfying rhythm, a young suitor, Tony enters the picture and adds a depth to life Eilis has yet to experience. It is only when Eilis begins to see her home in Brooklyn that a call from Ireland surfaces and Eilis is faced with a choice that only she must make.
Impressions
For a storyline with no antagonist and no major challenge to overcome aside from the basic life transitions we all face as we enter adulthood, I found myself oddly compelled to finish this book. Rarely do I allow a book to bore me along a good forty pages before I find something to hang onto as a reader. But Brooklyn had this strange draw for me. Nothing in Eilis’s life was earth shatteringly special and she was very unassuming. In fact, unassuming is a word I would use to describe the whole prose. Somehow Toibin uses the mundane to capture you in Eilis’s story and propel you forward just enough to stick with it to the end. How Toibin can take such an uncomplicated plot and main character and turn it into a best seller is a bit mystifying. My best guess is that most of us can relate to Eilis and the characters surrounding her because we have all had similar experiences transitioning from adolescence into adulthood, perhaps spreading our wings to explore experiences quite far away from the safety net of our beginnings.
Eilis reminds us that our lives are just a culmination of our choices over time. That the fullness of life is relational in nature and when we open and close doors on different relationships, our life path reflects these choices. There may be times when we wish for things at different stages of life that do not seem within our grasp. For Eilis, Ireland was home where she wished to be but left no room for invention of self. Brooklyn offered opportunities to make her life her own, a beginning with vast choices for her to narrow down over time of her own accord.
For me personally, Brooklyn reminded me why I was so grateful for the experience of going away to college, graduate school and clinical internships that forced geographical relocation. Every new adventure lent opportunity to me to reevaluate in what ways I wanted to change or reinvent myself. It let me break out of some of the social anxiety and shyness I experienced growing up in small town Iowa, and broadened my ideas of what I desired in my friendships and what kind of person I wanted to be relationally. Not everyone needs this type of experience, but for me it was a blessing.
This “nothing better to do” type of read that would be good for anyone looking for a restful reminder of the sweetness of young love with a bit of realism on the side. I can’t believe I’m about to say this…but I really loved the movie better than the book! Haters gonna hate, but the casting and the acting in the movie was excellent and filled in some visual holes for me that the book hadn’t managed to fill. Like Eilis, it is your choice.
Have you ever had the chance to reinvent yourself through a move? Are there any doors you closed with choices that you wish you could open again? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!