From Ireland to Brooklyn

Colm Toibin talks to IrishCentral about his new book, "Brooklyn"

"Brooklyn," Colm Toibin’s sixth novel which will go on sale May 5, is a spellbinding tale of a shy young Irish woman’s journey into adulthood.

It’s certain to mark Toibin’s transition from a critically admired novelist to an international bestselling author.

Born in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford in 1955, Toibin, 54, first began his career as a journalist and editor with the Dublin-based Magill magazine back in the early 1980s (he remained the magazine’s editor until 1985).

Toibin’s first novel "The South" was completed in 1986 but not published until 1990, first being turned down by every major publisher he approached. Undeterred, the emerging novelist pursued his craft, and very shortly his novels were winning the critical attention they merited.

His latest effort, “Brooklyn”, underlines why he’s a critic’s favorite, but it also does something new – its skill and accessibility will likely make it a crossover bestseller that will place him among the contenders for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.

Set in Ireland and Brooklyn in the early 1950s, “Brooklyn” introduces us to young Eilis Lacey, who has come of age in the austere post-World War II Ireland where she cannot find a job thanks to the miserable Irish economy. Living with her widowed mother and glamorous older sister Rose in small town Ireland, Eilis’ future looks far from bright if she stays working for the penny-pinching shopkeeper Miss Nelly Kelly.

Toibin is intimately aware of the rhythms and rituals of Irish country life and has terrific fun detailing the lives of the local women. What’s also remarkable, from start to finish, is how convincing his female characters are.

 “Someone told me that men think it’s a really quiet book, but no woman does,” Toibin tells IrishCentral. “I was in Wexford, where I’m from, and I suddenly saw the story in my mind, how simple it was. I just thought, 'Oh my God, I have to write this.'

“I thought it was going to be 100 pages, one of those novellas that no one reads. It was based on a story I heard about someone who came back to Enniscorthy from Brooklyn and didn’t tell anyone she was married for a long while.”

Another element that inspired his latest book was all the Atlantic hopping that Toibin, a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine among other publications, has been doing in the last four years.

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Nster.com