I chose my title for this entry from The Pogues song "Thousands are Sailing." The full verse is:
"Did the old songs taunt or cheer you?
And did they still make you cry?
Did you count the months and years
Or did your teardrops quickly dry?"
It is apt for a review of Colm Toibin's novel Brooklyn. Saoirse Ronan started in the 2015 film version of the novel. As a longtime subscriber to the New York Review of Books, I had read essays and reviews by Toibin, but had not read any of his fiction.
Toibin is a gifted fiction writer and tells an engrossing and tragic story of the young Irish protagonist Eilis Lacey. One of the universal experiences of immigrants is to come to terms with the sense of loss and what is left behind when you leave all that you know for the mythic American Dream. I came to the novel after having seen the film, but I will focus on the novel as best as possible.
Eilis' story begins in her home as she interacts with her popular, beautiful, and athletic sister Rose and her mother. Eilis is summoned to the shop owned by Miss Kelly. Though it is expensive, it is the best shop in town. Eilis is offered a job by Miss Kelly and feels obligated to accept it. Miss Kelly as a shop owner know all that happens in the small town. Eilis is the youngest of five children, including three brothers who all live in England. I do not recall reference to brothers in the film version, but they don't figure prominently in the novel.
The novel suggests the plan for Eilis to move to America were underway with Rose conspiring with Father Flood. Father Flood, who has a parish in Brooklyn, comes to dinner and plants the seed of Eilis' immigration. One of the strengths of Toibin's writing is his dialogue. Not only does he have a talent for capturing different modes of speaking, but he masterfully provides needed exposition subtly. He is equally adept at characterization. Within a few pages, the reader has a clear image of not only Eilis' family, but Miss Kelly and her coworker Mary, in addition to Eilis' friends and the male suitors in the town of Enniscorthy. They retain their distinctive small town Irish orientation, but characters like Miss Kelly, the town busybody are recognizable.
Eilis' voyage becomes a family affair as Rose accompanies her to Dublin and when she arrives in Liverpool, Eilis is met by her older brother Jack. Toibin provides a brief, but informative glimpse of the life of Jack and his brothers as Irishmen living in England.
The voyage over is hellish and Toibin offers a visceral depiction of this journey, including the struggles with seasickness, diet, and even the simple matter of using the restroom. Part One ends with her arrival to the U.S.
Part Two begins with Eilis as a boarder to a fellow Irishwoman, Mrs. Kehoe. I enjoyed these scenes in the boardinghouse as it was not something I had read about or knew much about during this time period. It makes sense as it was not proper for young, unmarried women to be living on their own. It illustrates the concept of chain migration, when people from one town or country come to a new place together. Brooklyn had become a new destination for Irish immigrants like Eilis. As Father Flood, the priest who arranged her immigration, found her a boarding house, and a job tells Eilis' mother "Parts of Brooklyn are just like Ireland. They're full of Irish" (24). In her job at Bartocci's, a Brooklyn department store, Eilis worked on the shop floor. Not only did she have a job, but Bartocci's offered to pay for part of the night courses they encouraged all their employees to take for self-improvement and advancement.
After surviving the annual Bartocci nylon sale, Eilis returns to find letters from home. The letters prompt self-reflection from Eilis. In this episode, Toibin provides insight to the immigrant experience that reflect the question posed in this post. "For the past few weeks, she realized, she had not really thought of home. . . . but her own life in Enniscorthy, the life she had lost and would never have again, she had kept out of her mind" (69). However, this prompts a strong bout of homesickness, to the point that her work supervisor noticed. Again, while within the novel, this is an immigrant experience, I have myself experienced a similar phenomenon after my divorce and my mother's death last summer. In the first instance, having to get up to go to work did prove therapeutic as my students did not know and justifiably would not care about my marital strife. When my mother passed a year ago July, it was not homesickness, but overwhelming nostalgia and mourning. Unfortunately, I did not rebound as well in my work and her death started the worst year of my life, that eventually led to me resigning from my teaching position. In the end, loss is loss. How we deal with it, that is the key. Thankfully Eilis has a sympathetic employer and supervisor who call in Father Flood and Mrs. Kehoe to help Eilis work through this predicament. While returning home as Father Flood had done at the beginning of the novel is not impossible, it is highly unlikely given the prohibitive cost of such a journey at this time. Something had fundamentally changed as Eilis made her way across the Atlantic. And that former life had disappeared forever.
Unfortunately, the Irish themselves don't disappear especially those who came much earlier than Eilis for work. Father Flood offers the following description. "they are all leftover Irishmen, they built the tunnels and the bridges and the highways. Some of the I only see once a year. God knows what they live on" (88). When Eilis asks why they don't return home, Father Flood explains that some have been here for 50 years and have no connections back home. For someone experiencing homesickness, Toibin deftly illustrates what it is to be truly without a home. After the dinner, Eilis is asked to stand next to one of the men who formerly was a prominent Irish singer. Toibin provides only one line of his song, sung in Irish, but chooses not to translate it for the readers. According to Google translate, the man serenaded Eilis, holding her hand, and telling her "If you are with me, my heart is broken." Eilis returns home to the boarding house at the end of Part Two.
Part Three begins with Eilis being rewarded by Mrs. Kehoe with the best room in the house, which includes her own entrance to the house. I loved how Eilis becomes suspicious of Mrs. Kehoe's seeming generosity. She interprets Mrs. Kehoe's secrecy as a sign that maybe this new room is not as desirable as Mrs. Kehoe has suggested. She is pleasantly surprised to learn it might be even better than promised. Now Eilis understands the need for secrecy and takes comfort knowing that Mrs. Kehoe has the right to assign this room to anyone she chooses. Things seem to be going well for Eilis at the start of Part Three as she is enjoying her work again, is taking her night classes at Brooklyn College, and now has a much improved living situation. However, her fellow boarders learn of her new lodgings, but claim they had the chance to take it and refused. Toibin does not reveal whether they were telling the truth or saving face, but Eilis comes to terms with their response. It does however highlight, that she does not have a real confidant in the house. Perhaps being set aside is not always desirable.
Part Three introduces Eilis' love interest-Tony, who comes to the Irish dances, though he is, in fact, Italian. He behaves like a gentleman around Eilis and according to her supervisor is unique among Italian men.
"Hold on. He doesn't take you drinking with his friends and leave you with all the girls?"
"No."
"He doesn't talk about himself all the time when he's not telling you how great his mother is?"
"No."
"Then you hold on to him, honey. There aren't two of him. Maybe in Ireland, but not here."
Toibin artfully describes the challenges of relationships like that of Eilis and Tony. Despite, Miss Fortini being the daughter of an Irish mother and Italian father, this type of interethnic dating is not encouraged or common in Brooklyn at this time. I have often wondered about this, because both the Italians and Irish were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, but tremendous prejudice existed between these two groups. This prejudice is not a relic of the past. Despite a 40 year time difference, my ex-wife and I dealt with some similar tension with her being a German Catholic and me being a Mexican Catholic. In fact, we were married in Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, which was only blocks from a German Catholic parish. Despite the proximity, the two parishes rarely interacted.
Toibin illustrates the difference in cuisine and explains plausibly some of the reasons Italians, like Tony's younger brother Frank, don't like the Irish. Another important event in this relationship is when Tony plans to take Eilis to Coney Island. Thankfully Miss Fortini explains the importance of looking good for her Italian boyfriend, another noticeable difference between Italian and Irish culture. The development of the relationship between Eilis and Tony was well-paced. Toibin does a good job of putting himself into the minds of women like Miss Fortini and Eilis, revealing the gender expectations of women in both the Old and New Worlds. The fact that Eilis confided fully to Rose about Tony, but never mentioned him to her mother provides another example of some of the problems for immigrants like Eilis. It seems more and more likely as the novel progresses that Eilis will never return to Ireland, but her mother holds out that hope though it is never discussed by either of them.
The news of Rose's sudden death back home comes near the end of Part Three setting the stage for the last section of the book. An added complication is the fact that the death of Rose meant that her mother was all alone. Toibin uses a letter from Jack to explicitly state what was assumed- that Rose would be expected to return home, not Jack and her other brothers. Clearly this complicates Eilis and the life she is building with Tony. After having sex for the first time and waiting to determine if she was pregnant, changed things for Eilis. Having decided to return home for a month to see her mother, Tony begs Eilis to secretly marry her before leaving for Ireland. She agrees and they have a quick and discrete civil ceremony.
Part Four takes place primarily back in Ireland. The secret wedding is a secret which provides dramatic irony for the readers as no one else knows that rose is now Mrs. Fiorello. This return trip allows Eilis a distinctive experience as most of her fellow Irish immigrants would not have the opportunity to return home, like those men she feeds on Christmas Day. Even fewer would return secretly married, only to deal with increasing pressure to stay home permanently. After completing her obligations with Rose and paying her respects, Eilis started to reacquaint with her former friends.
Eilis has numerous precarious situations where she has to remember to not let slip that she has a boyfriend or someone waiting for her back in America. Naturally this only complicates things as her mother and friends assume she is unattached. As Eilis began to spend more time with Jim Farrell, Eilis felt the conflict between Tony and her life in America and her enjoyment of her time back home and with Jim. "She wished now that she had not married him, not because she did not love him and intend to return to him, but because not telling her mother or her friends made every day she had spent in America a sort of fantasy, somethng she could not match wi the time she was spending at home" (226). She was struggling to balance her double life and identity as a young American bride and a faithful Irish daughter.
Toibin further complicates Eilis' time in Ireland by having her being offered a job at Rose's old office because of her aptitude with bookkeeping. This could potentially extend her time away from Tony and Brooklyn even longer. Despite all these factors making it harder for Eilis to leave, she does manage to tell Jim she would be leaving after the wedding of their mutual friends. Additionally, Eilis struggles with the possibility of Jim proposing to her. She runs through possible scenarios including divorcing Tony. What makes the situation even more complicated is the fact this is all Eilis' fault. If she had only been honest with her mother and everyone else involved. At the same time, it is entirely understandable that Eilis is struggling with her future. The reality of having a career and a relationship within her own hometown would have to be attractive. However, unlike Jim and her friends, she has been not only outside of Enniscorthy, but she had created an entirely new life in Brooklyn.
In a subtle, but effective manner, Toibin allows someone else to make the decision for Eilis, her old boss and town busybody- Miss Kelly. Once again, Eilis is summoned to see Miss Kelly with Mary as the messenger. It turns out that Mrs. Kehoe was a first cousin of Miss Kelly. In her gossipy way, Miss Kelly let Eilis know of her secret marriage to Tony. While this conversation with Miss Kelly served as the catalyst for Eilis' decision to return, perhaps she would have made the return on her own. She might as easily decided to stay and build a new life with Jim? The ambiguity, while unsatisfying, serves as an effective narrative strategy on Toibin's part. Eilis has the opportunity to achieve closure with her life in Ireland and the return trip to Ireland to allow her teardrops to dry. For fans of the film, I would highly encourage you to read Toibin's novel. It is worth the time.
