Brooklyn

Brooklyn (2009) by the Irish writer Colm Toibin is a quiet, deeply moving novel about emigration, homesickness and divided loyalty. In the early 1950s, the young Eilis Lacey leaves her small Irish home town of Enniscorthy for Brooklyn, New York, an emigration arranged by the priest Father Flood because there is no work for her in Ireland. There she slowly builds a new life and falls in love with the Italian-American Tony Fiorello, until a death at home draws her back to Ireland and forces an agonising choice between two lives and two loves.

Setting

The novel moves between two worlds: the close, knowing, claustrophobic town of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, Ireland, and the immigrant world of 1950s Brooklyn, with its boarding house, department store and parish dances. The contrast between these two places, and Eilis's position between them, is the heart of the book.

The central movement

Eilis emigrates, suffers terrible homesickness, and gradually settles, studying bookkeeping and meeting Tony, whom she secretly marries before returning to Ireland for the funeral of her beloved sister Rose. At home, surrounded by family, a good job and the attentions of Jim Farrell, she is tempted to stay and to keep her marriage secret. Only when the shopkeeper Miss Kelly threatens to expose her does Eilis return to Brooklyn and Tony, leaving her mother and Jim behind.

Why it matters for the exam

For Cambridge IGCSE you must analyse how Toibin creates meaning through his restrained, understated style: his quiet third-person narration close to Eilis's thoughts, his use of contrast between Ireland and America, and his subtle study of homesickness, identity, duty and silence. This guide gives you the plot, characters, themes, context, style, key passages, a quotation bank and full essay practice, with constant attention to the writer's craft.