Virginia Lee - Colm Toibins Brooklyn

Insight Text Guide

Virginia Lee

Brooklyn

Colm Tibn

Copyright Insight Publications

First published in 2013.

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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Lee, Virginia, author.

Colm Toibins Brooklyn / Virginia Lee.

9781922150868 (paperback)

Insight text guide.

Includes bibliographical references.

For secondary school age.

Tibn, Colm, 1955- . Brooklyn.

Tibn, Colm, 1955- .Criticism and interpretation. Tibn, Colm, 1955- , author. Brooklyn.

823.914

contents

CHARACTER MAP

OVERVIEW

About the author

Colm Tibn is one of Irelands most admired contemporary writers. Born in Enniscorthy in 1955, he has travelled extensively and now resides in the United States. Tibn is a member of Aosdna, an Irish association of artists, and has had close professional ties to a number of universities in England and America. He currently teaches at Columbia University, where he holds the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities chair.

Tibn has written seven novels and a range of other work, including two volumes of short stories, poetry, drama and a large body of nonfiction. He is particularly interested in exploring ideas such as contemporary Irish society, the migrant experience, identity, family relationships and creativity. Brooklyn was first published in 2009 to considerable critical acclaim, winning the Costa Novel Award and being longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in that year.

Synopsis

In the early 1950s, Eilis Lacey lives in Enniscorthy with her recently widowed mother and older sister, Rose. She is completing a course in bookkeeping, but there is no professional work available and the only employment she is offered involves serving part-time in Miss Kellys shop. Rose introduces the family to an Irish priest, Father Flood, who lives in New York. He urges Eilis to consider immigrating to America. He offers to sponsor her and subsequently organises her accommodation and employment in Brooklyn. Despite Eilis dismay at leaving home, she complies without protest when she realises that her mother and Rose are in favour of the scheme. Before crossing the Atlantic she meets up with her brother Jack, who lives in England. During the sea voyage to America, Eilis is violently seasick.

In Brooklyn, Eilis boards at Mrs Kehoes and starts work at Bartoccis department store. She settles in well, but when she receives the first letters from Ireland she becomes very homesick. Father Flood suggests that she keep busy and enrols her at Brooklyn College to do a part-time bookkeeping and accountancy course. In turn, Eilis spends Christmas Day assisting with Father Floods dinner for the homeless Irish.

In the new year, Father Flood starts running a regular parish dance to raise money for charity. Eilis attends, with the other boarders. She meets a young American-Italian man named Tony Fiorello, and they begin a relationship. Tony makes no secret of his feelings towards Eilis, but she is more circumspect. In the meantime, Bartoccis welcomes coloured customers into the store for the first time, a controversial initiative that invites criticism from some of Eilis fellow lodgers.

Eilis passes her first-year exams at Brooklyn College and commences the final year. She and Tony see each other frequently; she meets his parents and three brothers, and he takes her to Coney Island and to a baseball game at Ebbets Field.

Eilis receives the unexpected and shocking news that Rose has died in her sleep of a pre-existing but undisclosed heart condition. In her sorrow, Eilis turns to Tony. They sleep together for the first time and, before she returns to Ireland for a visit, secretly marry.

Back in Enniscorthy, Eilis tries to support her mother. Through her friend Nancy Byrne, Eilis reconnects with a local man, Jim Farrell. She tells no one of her marriage to Tony. What starts as a harmless flirtation with Jim quickly escalates into a potentially serious relationship. Confused and conflicted, Eilis realises that she has made a mistake in marrying so impulsively, but she still cannot bring herself to tell Jim the truth. When Miss Kelly, her previous employer, indicates that she knows of Eilis deception, Eilis confesses her situation to her mother and returns to Brooklyn.

Character summaries

Eilis Lacey

The protagonist of Brooklyn; a young woman from Enniscorthy, Ireland, approximately twenty years old, who immigrates to America. In Brooklyn, Eilis works in Bartoccis department store and studies bookkeeping. During the course of the novel she is romantically involved with both Tony Fiorello and Jim Farrell.

Rose Lacey

Eilis thirty-year-old unmarried sister; works in the office of Daviss Mills and supports Eilis and their mother financially. Rose encourages Eilis emigration. She dies unexpectedly from an undisclosed heart condition.

Mrs Lacey

The mother of Rose, Pat, Martin, Jack and Eilis Lacey; widowed four years earlier.

Miss Kelly

The proprietor of a prosperous grocery shop; offers Eilis a part-time job.

Nancy Byrne

Eilis closest girlfriend; she is about the same age as Eilis and works behind the counter in Buttles Barley-Fed Bacon. She becomes engaged to George Sheridan.

Annette OBrien

Another good friend of Eilis; also of a similar age to Eilis.

George Sheridan

Nancy Byrnes fianc; in his mid-twenties. Runs a successful shop in Market Square and will inherit the business in full after his mothers death. Member of the rugby club and close friends with Jim Farrell.

Jim Farrell

George Sheridans closest friend; of a similar age to George and also a member of the rugby club. An only child who works in his fathers hotel in Rafter Street. Becomes romantically involved with Eilis when she returns to Enniscorthy.

Jack Lacey

Eilis older brother; has followed his two brothers, Pat and Martin, to Birmingham for better employment prospects. Meets Eilis in Liverpool before she leaves for America.

Georgina

An Englishwoman with whom Eilis shares a cabin on the Atlantic crossing.

Father Flood

The Irish parish priest who facilitates Eilis immigration to Brooklyn; acts as a sponsor and mentor when she arrives.

Mrs Kehoe

An Irishwoman from Wexford who runs a boarding house in Brooklyn. Deserted by her husband; takes Eilis under her wing.