At the start of Long Island, a stranger appears at Eilis Fiorello’s front door and informs her that his wife is expecting a baby and he will be bringing it to her house once it’s born. Why? Because the child has been fathered by Eilis’s husband, Tony. “And you can tell your husband from me,” the man adds, “that if I ever see his face anywhere, I’ll come after him with an iron bar.”
The sequel to Colm Tóibín’s mega-selling, Booker-longlisted 2009 novel Brooklyn, Long Island is set 20 years after its predecessor. Eilis, from County Wexford in Ireland (where Tóibín grew up), had moved to America and married in secret, leaving behind a local man, Jim, for whom she carried a torch. Now it is the mid-1970s and Eilis, a bookkeeper, has two teenage children with Tony, a plumber of Italian descent. Eilis had left Ireland in part to escape small-town life, though now she is similarly stifled by her interfering in-laws, who live next door.
And so, after learning of her husband’s infidelity – and to give herself time to think – she goes back with her children to County Wexford, on the pretext of visiting her elderly mother. The Irish actor Jessie Buckley is the book’s narrator, making neat work of the Italian-American accents plus those of Eilis and her family, and capturing the protagonist’s conflicted feelings about being back home. In Ireland, Eilis is assailed by memories of the people and places she left behind, and finds herself daydreaming about the roads not taken.
• Available via Audible, 9hr 28min
Further listening
Precipice
Robert Harris, Penguin Audio, 12hr 25min
The actor Samuel West reads this thriller revolving around the real-life affair between British PM Herbert Henry Asquith and young socialite Venetia Stanley.
Hits, Flops and Other Illusions
Ed Zwick, Simon & Schuster Audio, 10hr 23min
The Legends of the Fall director reads his memoir, reflecting on his career and offering tips for fledgling filmmakers on how to make it in Tinseltown.
