The Aftermath of Book Week!
Click play to listen to audio transcript of this post.
Well, Book Week NI was a blast this year with a plethora of author interviews available online and the launch of our new Bookcited! podcast. I hope you get a chance to listen in to our lighthearted chat! Bookcited!: A Libraries NI podcast for all things library
One of the highlights for me was the chance to interview the great Colm Toibin about Long Island – our Big Read for this season. It has been great too to receive lots of reviews from the many reading Groups who have been reading Long Island this month. The feedback has been mainly positive though like most books there was some mixed feedback too. We had a Super Online Reading Group meeting as well with lots of you joining in and sharing your thoughts on the book – the Online RG meets regularly each month to discuss different books. Why don’t you consider joining us if you are free on Thursdays over lunchtime? The next meeting is Thursday 28 November at 1:00pm – the book for November is The Book of Beginnings by Sally Page and it is available as an eBook and eAudiobook from our free Libby and BorrowBox apps.
[Click on the link for the Online Reading Group registration page November 2024]
Anyway, back to Long Island – I thought I would share some of our readers varied thoughts on the story. Most thought it was a great sequel to Brooklyn with a captivating start when Eilish is confronted by an irate
Author Colm Tóibín
man at her front door. But most agreed that it would also stand on its own if the first book had passed you by. I do think though that if you first read Long Island you will probably want to read Brooklyn anyway!
The story is character driven with strong female characters which makes for interesting comparisons between Italian and Irish families – both who have strong matriarchal leads. Both are controlling and manipulative, claustrophobic in the case of the Italian influence and judgemental in the Irish one. Eilish’s mother in particular punishes Eilish for not returning home for 20 years, and becomes increasingly difficult with Eilish around the house until the grandchildren appear - when she miraculously transforms to a doting grandmother and loving matriarch.
Some readers thought that Eilish was irresponsible in rekindling the relationship with Jim – although I reckon that it was Jim who was in the wrong. Eilish didn’t know about Jim and Nancy’s relationship so it would have been up to him to stop things progressing with Eilish. We all agreed though that Jim did himself no favours, taking what he could get and settling, instead of moving on with his life after Eilish left the first time. There are a great many secrets being kept by many in Long Island and none is very open about their true feelings or open to honest discussion. Maybe this is true of the time – the seventies hadn’t yet succumbed to the culture of therapy that we know now with the focus on talking it out to work out our problems.
Everyone was agreed on the quality of the writing, of the accessible narrative and the skill of the author in both narrative and inner dialogue. The parallels between the two books are obvious with the ambiguous ending of both – perhaps leaving the door open for another sequel. In the interview the author was noncommittal about any plans to write a third.
If you haven’t already seen the interview you can watch it here. Join the Libraries NI Big Read – Long Island by Colm Tóibín
Click on the image below to zoom in.
Colm Toibin books available from Libraries NI
