Brooklyn - Colm Toibinis

“No one who went to America missed home. Instead they were happy there and proud." Could that be true? I too wonder as Eilis Lacey concerned about things adding up in both columns :-) and whose debit and credit columns will be affected.

A 2009 novel by Irish author Colm Toibinis the first part is a delightful picture of small-town Ireland in the 1950s. Eilis Lacey has few prospects in life; there are no available jobs and even fewer available men. So when a priest offers to sponsor her to emigrate to the U.S. Even though she’s sad to leave her mother and older sister, Rose; she accepts the invitation and migrates to America. The middle two parts chart Eilis’ arrival and settling in to life and study in Brooklyn. She’s desperately homesick. That eases up when, with the help of that same priest, she takes night school bookkeeping courses; she also meets a charming Italian-American man, Tony. All is going well until she’s called back to Ireland. She’s modest, sensible and hard-working, but she’s also got a fine sense of humour. The department store – its billing system, how the store adjusts to the times; when its savvy owner realizes the neighbourhood is changing, it begins catering to African-American customers, and it’s fascinating to see how Eilis reacts. This is the new world, with opportunities for all. There’s also a tiny scene about one of Eilis’s instructors, whose family was killed in the Holocaust. Eili and Tony's romance becomes more serious, and Tony confesses his love for Eilis, and his plans to build a home on Long Island. Then comes her return home. One day while Eilis is working she learns from Father Flood that her sister Rose has died in her sleep from a pre-existing heart condition. She secretly marries Tony before she leaves. In Ireland she falls back into the town society easily. She goes to the beach with Nancy, George and their friend Jim Farrell, who is interested in her. Eilis is forced to spend time with Jim and eventually starts a brief relationship with him. He is a local pub owner, to whom she had been attracted before immigrating to America. Eilis's mother is desperate for her to settle back in Ireland and marry Jim, as Eilis has not confided in her or her friends about her marriage. Eilis procrastinates about a return to her new life by extending her stay. She saves Tony's letters unopened thinking at times that she no longer loves him. Eventually a local busybody, Miss Kelly, tells Eilis she knows her secret because Madge Kehoe is her cousin and somehow the story is out in New York. This is the turning point for Eilis and she immediately books her return passage, telling her mother the truth about her marriage and posting a farewell note to Jim as she leaves town by taxi for the docks.

Literary fiction helps us get deep into character, to understand where people come from, not just geographically but psychologically and emotionally.

Lesson Learned: Decisions are always important, but every so often a decision so powerful will come along that either direction you take will completely alter your life hereafter. We’ve all experienced that moment, a moment where if you went down a certain path (as Robert Frost would say- “the road not taken”) our life would be different today. Some moments are just that strong; they don’t come along very often, but when they do they linger for what feels like an eternity. Sometimes something, or someone, comes along that threatens to change the game completely. Your life becomes something else, and your reaction to it may come to define the rest of your days.