Brooklyn

Brooklyn
By Colm Tóibín
Penguin £7.99, 252 pages
FT Bookshop price: £6.39

Lacking prospects in 1950s rural Ireland, Eilis Lacey emigrates to New York, where she lodges in starchy Ma Kehoe’s Brooklyn home. Her homesickness is partly assuaged by night classes in book-keeping, arranged by Father Flood, whose parish dances provide weekend revelry. Ma Kehoe is predictably outraged.

Colm Tóibín’s unhurried narrative maps out the constrained manners and gossipy prejudices that define Lacey’s American life. Gradually he gives more emotional colour to her deepening friendship with Tony, a genial Italian-American plumber. A sudden loss forces far-reaching decisions that steer Brooklyn towards a wistful exploration of opportunity and responsibility.

A tale of misplaced love punished by circumstance, this unassuming and powerful novel – winner of the 2009 Costa Novel Award – has a quiet muscularity. The effect is reminiscent of William Trevor’s small-town social autopsies of lives misfired.