Joan Mackenzie reviews Long Island by Colm Toibin

Hello I'm Joan and this book is called Long Island by Colm Toibin. Some years ago he wrote a book called Brooklyn about a young Irish woman named Ailish who left Ireland and moved to America well to Brooklyn obviously where she married into an Italian family. Now the story is picked up 20 years later. She has a couple of kids with Tony her husband but she is not happy in her marriage. They live in a little cul de sac with his extended family all nearby and they are very embedded in her life. One day a complete stranger turns up on the doorstep and tells her that her husband Tony has been having an affair with his wife who’s pregnant and that he intends when the baby arrives to bring it over and dump it on their doorstep which prospect frankly appals her. So she decides for the first time since leaving Ireland to make a trip home ostensibly for her mother’s 80th birthday and off she goes. And while she’s there she reconnects with a man with whom she was in love before her move to America all those years ago. Colm Tobin is really good at the nuance of relationships and a sense of place and this book truly is a joy to read.

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