Long Island

Long Island, by Colm Tóibín, is a novel published by Scribner on May 7, 2024, and is a sequel to Tóibín’s 2009 novel Brooklyn. While Brooklyn is largely considered a work of historical fiction as it follows Eilis Lacey’s immigration to America from Ireland, Long Island occurs over 20 years later, as she returns to Ireland in crisis. Eilis’s husband, Tony Fiorello, is having a child with another woman, and despite Eilis’s insistence that she does not want to raise the baby, his family works against her. When she arrives back in her hometown of Enniscorthy, she reignites an old passion with Jim Farrell. Jim waits decades for another chance with Eilis, but his secret relationship with her widowed former best friend, Nancy Sheridan, makes his path forward unclear. The novel explores themes of Loneliness as a Motivating Factor, The Pressures of Living in a Small Community, and The Tension Between Desire and Duty.

This guide is based on the first edition hardcover, published as a pick for Oprah’s Book Club 2024.

Plot Summary

One day, an Irishman appears at Eilis’s door in Long Island and tells her that his wife is pregnant with Eilis’s husband’s baby. He plans on leaving the baby with Eilis when it is born in August. Later that night, in bed, Eilis asks her husband Tony if the man is telling the truth, and Tony tells her that he is and apologizes for not telling her sooner. Eilis tells Tony that she has no intention of raising the baby and does not want it in her house or in the family. Worried that if her mother-in-law, Francesca, finds out about the child she will work to undermine Eilis’s wishes, she goes to meet with her lawyer, Tony’s brother Frank. Frank tells Eilis that Francesca knows about the baby and is already working to bring it into the family, sending the man who visited Eilis to Frank. He shares that the plan is for Tony to adopt the child but for Francesca to raise it. Francesca has a way of making every terrible thing seem normal in the family, all in an effort to keep peace, and she soon approaches Eilis about the child, asking what she wants to do. Eilis realizes that Francesca uses this approach to make Eilis the villain, and she stands firm in her desire to not have the baby anywhere near her.

Eilis receives a letter from her own mother, about to turn 80 in Enniscorthy, Ireland, and notices that she mentions all the people she knows in town except Jim Farrell. Over two decades prior, Eilis came back to Ireland after the death of her sister Rose, and despite being secretly married to Tony already, fell in love with Jim. When she left Ireland to marry Tony, Jim’s heart was broken. Now, Eilis decides to return home to visit her mother and ask her advice about the baby. After she tells her two teenagers, Larry and Rosella, about the baby, they decide they will join her halfway through her trip.

Nancy Sheridan, Eilis’s former best friend, runs a chip shop in Enniscorthy, having converted it from the market she once owned with her now deceased husband. When drunk customers harass her, she calls Jim Farrell over from his pub to deal with them. She and Jim are in the midst of a secret relationship, not wanting to announce an engagement and steal attention from Nancy’s soon-to-be-married daughter. Nancy wants to move out of town with Jim, both of them leaving their businesses, but she does not tell him. One day, Eilis appears at her door, and as they catch up, Nancy notices that Eilis does not mention her husband. When Eilis asks if Jim ever married, Nancy makes up a lie that he is seeing someone in Dublin.

Eilis buys new appliances for her mother, but her mother—still angry with her for going to America—refuses to accept them. Eilis’s mother is very critical of her and does not want to hear about her life in America. One day, to escape her mother, Eilis walks through town, quickly passing by Jim Farrell. Jim notices Eilis and is shocked that no one has told him she is back in town. He remembers the pain of her leaving and the gossip and judgment that plagued him for months afterwards. He felt intense loneliness in the years after, never successfully pursuing romance again until he found Nancy. He stays up all night thinking of Eilis, and even goes to walk by her house.

Nancy coordinates a ride with Jim into Dublin to try on dresses for her daughter’s wedding, but she finds herself anxious over whether people will see them together or if Jim will not like her close company. As she tries on dresses, Nancy tells the saleswoman everything about Jim, including her hope to be married in Rome. The saleswoman sells her on a wedding dress, and Nancy leaves, feeling more confident than she has about her future with Jim.

As Eilis’s mother continues to annoy her, she escapes for a night to her brother’s seaside cottage in Cush. It is the first night Eilis has ever spent alone, and she thinks of her children at home. She also remembers Tony driving her to the airport, and how even though she wanted to threaten him, his presumed vulnerability stopped her. She left him at the car, refusing to look back because she knew he was waiting for her to do so.

Meanwhile, Jim wants to marry Nancy and is frustrated by their secrecy and delay. Nonetheless, he wants to speak with Eilis just once before she goes back to America. While working at the pub, he learns from Eilis’s brother that Eilis has gone to the seaside town of Cush to escape their mother. Jim finds her there, walking the beach after swimming. Their conversation is plain, with no expression of unresolved feelings.

On the day of her daughter’s wedding, Nancy struggles with conflicting thoughts over her future with Jim and her past with George. She watches as Jim speaks with Eilis but thinks nothing of it, even when she hears that someone met Jim wandering around in Cush. At the end of the night, Nancy plans to go home with Jim, but she cannot find him and is told he left already, despite his car still being at the reception.

Eilis stays away from Jim at the wedding, not wanting to draw undue attention from townspeople. Despite this, Jim invites her into a stairwell and tells her that he wants to see her again, suggesting that she find him at his apartment. Later, as she prepares to leave, Jim asks for a ride home, telling her that he had too much to drink. He suggests she drop him off at his apartment and then meet him there later. Eilis does meet him, and they stay up talking, with Jim sharing that he regrets not pursuing her and not spending a night with her. He offers to spend a night with her in Dublin the day before her children arrive, and she tells him she will consider it.

Nancy meets with Father Walsh to discuss her plans to marry Jim, but when she goes searching for Jim afterwards, his bartender tells her that he is in Dublin and will not be back that day. She then goes looking for Eilis instead and discovers through her mother that she is in Dublin as well. Nancy finds this coincidence odd but dismisses her worries. On her way back from the airport with Rosella and Larry, Eilis warns them not to share any information about their father with their grandmother and then reminisces about her time with Jim the night before, and of how he told her he will follow her to America. Mrs. Lacey acts very differently with the children there, interested in their lives, though she does take Larry for a walk to warn him that he cannot share too much information in such a small town. Rosella soon tells Eilis that Larry told his grandmother everything on this walk, and Eilis feels anxious over what to do. She calls Jim from a payphone to say she needs more time, but when he picks up, she says nothing. Jim, meanwhile, convinces himself that he will follow Eilis if she lets him but will stay with Nancy if she won’t.

Nancy begins searching for land to build a house on and finds a plot owned by an old woman she knows. The old woman questions her intensely on why she wants the land and Nancy finally tells her about Jim. She shows Jim the land, but he does not seem overly excited, though he also does not disapprove of it. That same week, Eilis’s other brothers arrive to celebrate their mother’s birthday. Her brother Jack, a wealthy man, finds Eilis and tells her that he knows about her troubles and will buy a house for her to help her be independent. Eilis puts off telling Jim she needs time until one morning she finds a letter from Francesca for Rosella. The letter includes a picture of Tony’s new daughter and a letter asserting that the baby is a part of the family.

Eilis calls Jim, and he meets her in Cush, where she tells him that she is going to leave Tony. She invites Jim to follow her to America if he wishes, but she warns him that he will have to wait until her divorce is settled. Jim tells her that he would rather struggle in America than wait for her in Ireland and tells her that he loves her, to which Eilis replies that she loves him too. That same day, Nancy goes looking for Jim and again cannot find him. When she returns home, Eilis’s son is with her own son and he tells Nancy that his mother is in Cush. Thinking of how Jim was seen in Cush and is now missing at the same time as Eilis, Nancy drives over to Cush and sees Jim and Eilis kissing on the beach. She rushes back to town, puts her old engagement ring on and goes to tell Mrs. Lacey and the rest of the town that she is engaged to Jim Farrell.

When Eilis returns home, Rosella tells her that her mother is planning to return to Long Island with them, having booked a ticket on their same exact flight. Eilis discovers that her mother went into her suitcase for the ticket information and that she also found the letter from Francesca. Eilis tries to convince her mother not to come, and her mother admits that she knows everything. She also tells Eilis that Jim and Nancy are engaged. Eilis, in disbelief, tries to call Jim but he will not pick up. She goes to find him at his pub.

Jim, meanwhile, returns to his pub and begins packing in his apartment upstairs. Nancy soon finds him and makes an excuse that someone found out about their engagement, and that is why she began spreading the news on her own. She will not admit that she knows about Eilis, and Jim admit it himself. He agrees to celebrate with her at midnight. After she leaves, Eilis arrives, asking him why he did not tell her about Nancy. They agree that she must know about them and when Jim asks what Eilis will do if he calls her sometime in the future, saying he is in New York for her, she says nothing and leaves. Left alone, Jim does not know what to do, and waits for Nancy at midnight, hoping he will have a better plan the next day.