Sequels are a tough gig. Colm Tóibín’s Long Island – the sequel to Brooklyn – is exquisite. And, I’ll go as far as saying that I enjoyed it more than Brooklyn.
There are already dozens of reviews of this novel; it’s front-and-centre at every bookshop you walk into; and the reservations at my library number 120+ (of which I was one). Fortunately, I popped by the library last week and spied it on the ‘Most Wanted’ shelf (one week loans, no renewals, and bad karma for borrowers who don’t observe the rules!). Needless to say, I snapped it up and started reading immediately.
I’m not going to say much about the plot of Long Island, but I will say something about it being a sequel. When I heard Tóibín speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival (beamed all the way to me in Melbourne) he said that he never intended for Brooklyn to have a sequel –
“Had I left Brooklyn that way it would have been cheap and shameful. Instead, I just assumed they’d live their lives as suggested, with family on Long Island. And then one day the opening [for Long Island] came to me… because I needed a drama to build around.”
The story is told from multiple points-of-view, which serve to beautifully complicate the reader’s alliances. There are secrets – not especially earth-shattering but significant in the town of Enniscorthy where people know each other’s business – and the only person privy to all of those secrets is the reader. And this is where Tóibín proves his skill because the story could have so easily veered into something melodramatic. Instead, it’s nuanced, fitting, and will leave readers pondering long after they’ve closed the book.
Something must be said for the mother-daughter relationships, for there’s lots in Long Island, most notably between Eilis and her mother (Mrs Lacey), and Eilis and her mother-in-law (Francesca). Both Mrs Lacey and Francesca are the matriarchs, but each rules in her own style – Mrs Lacey with her passive-aggressive judgements, and Francesca with her vieled presentation of ‘caring’ and ‘loyalty’ to family, but still doing things exactly how she wants. It was Mrs Lacey’s antics that had me laughing during this most enjoyable book.
4/5
Mrs Lacey refuses to celebrate her birthday, recounting the story of an elderly neighbour, Miss Jane Hegarty, who’s 100th birthday party did not go as planned –
“…the people who organised the party were a low crowd. Not all of them, mind. But enough of them to make it a free-for-all. Word spread that there was drink to be had. Louts descended on her house. And of course they not only fed themselves lashings of vodka, if it wasn’t gin, but they fed Miss Jane too, and in her innocence, Miss Jane drank it, topped up with lemonade. And they drank and she drank until someone put her to bed. And she died the next day. She died of the party. Vodka and good cheer one day and a coffin and a hearse the next. And if anyone thinks this is happening on my birthday, they can think again. I will bar the door.”
