Long Island

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What to expect

Read by Olivier Award winner and Oscar nominee, Jessie Buckley, and featuring an exclusive audio Q&A.

'Heartbreak, wistfulness, cracking dialogue . . . This is Tóibín at his best' - The Times
'A masterful novel full of longing and regret . . . Intensely moving and yet full of restraint' - Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain

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Long Island is Colm Tóibín’s masterpiece: an exquisite, exhilarating audiobook that asks whether it is possible to truly return to the past and renew the great love that seemed gone forever. The sequel to Colm Tóibín's prize-winning, bestselling novel Brooklyn.

A man with an Irish accent knocks on Eilis Fiorello’s door on Long Island and in that moment everything changes. Eilis and Tony have built a secure, happy life here since leaving Brooklyn - perhaps a little stifled by the in-laws so close, but twenty years married and with two children looking towards a good future.

And yet this stranger will reveal something that will make Eilis question the life she has created. For the first time in years she suddenly feels very far from home and the revelation will see her turn towards Ireland once again. Back to her mother. Back to the town and the people she had chosen to leave behind.

Did she make the wrong choice marrying Tony all those years ago? Is it too late now to take a different path?

Critics Review

Long Island is the best new novel I’ve read in years – and it’s as persuasive an argument in defence of the unique capability of the novel form as you could ever hope to find
Telegraph
You don't have to have read Brooklyn to enjoy the many pleasures of Long Island. It is a masterful novel full of longing and regret. A tale of lovers reconnecting, of compromise, and the settling that can come later in life. Intensely moving and yet full of restraint, I was sad to turn the final page
Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
A brilliant novel . . . it is beautifully crafted and makes for a riveting, wonderful read
Observer
Heartbreak, wistfulness, cracking dialogue . . . This is Tóibín at his best
The Times
Morally and pscyhologically meaty . . . Engrossing, truthful and humane, [Long Island] is a magnificent achievement
The Times
His best yet . . . It reads like the tensest of stage plays, but with all the pleasures of interiority that the novel form allows. I haven't wanted to hug this many characters in a while
Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times and The Happy Couple
A masterful and uproariously entertaining book, glittering with all of Toibin's intelligence and humane wit, as compelling, passionate and quietly enigmatic as its unforgettable protagonist Eilis Lacey
Colin Barrett, author of Wild Houses
Tóibín is the consummate cartographer of the private self, summoning with restrained acuity (and a delicious streak of sly humour) the thoughts his characters struggle to find words for . . . [Long Island is] the work of a writer at the height of his considerable powers, a story of ordinary lives that contains multitudes.
Guardian
Colm Tóibín's heartrending follow-up to his beloved 2009 novel, Brooklyn, is the rare instance in which a sequel is every bit as good as the original
NPR
Exquisitely drawn
New York Times
Brooklyn and Long Island . . . capture the decency and ordinariness of the characters as well as the deep emotional ruptures that drive them toward disorder. The confrontations between these people, so long delayed, feel momentous and hugely affecting. These pendant novels, I think, will be the fiction for which this wonderful writer is best remembered.
Wall Street Journal
Tóibín [is] a master of his art . . . exquisite
Los Angeles Times
Compellingly readable, carefully constructed, and beautifully written. Once you start, you'll be hooked
Irish Examiner
There are few authors more attuned to human yearning . . . a wistful novel, heavy with longing . . . [with] a tension to rival any thriller . . . a sequel that more than earns its place
Inews
First in Brooklyn, and now in Long Island, Tóibín has conducted an exhilarating masterclass in extract the maximum effect from the minimum of prose, with the leanest and cleanest narrative line . . . His gifts are so remarkable
Independent
Does a procession of brilliant vignettes a great novel make? There is more to Long Island than this, but at times, the whole package, so expertly put together, the prose so dazzlingly polished, feels like a studio-ready screenplay
Financial Times
Long Island often reads like a masterclass in everything Tóibín can do . . . [The] silences and absences at the core of this subtle, intelligent and moving book mean the reader has to do a certain amount of work – but it is very well rewarded
Guardian
Tóibín is a class act and his eye for the absurdities of Irish life keeps the pages turning
Mail on Sunday
Long Island . . . hums with the haunting energy of lives unlived, suppressed passions and packs a sustained emotional punch. The characters can be infuriating, but with an assured and poignant tone of quiet resignation woven throughout, this is absolutely riveting writing
York Press
Long Island is written in the disciplined, polished prose for which Tóibín is known . . . For all his reservations about sequels, Tóibín, a writer evidently at the height of his powers, has written a remarkably good one
Sunday Independent
Long Island will deservedly cement Tóibín's place at the top table of novelists, not just in Ireland but across the world, as an astute and precious chronicler of the human heart in all its foibles. Exquisite.
Business Post
In Long Island, Colm Tóibín has finally given us a follow-up to Brooklyn . . . I read it in one sitting, thrilled to be back with the characters that captivated me last time.
Observer
A gorgeous slow burn of a story, suffused with a sense of longing and might-have-beens
The Independent

User Reviews

Book 4.7
Narration 4.7
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iuanacostea 20/01/2025
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E Phair 07/09/2024
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Great read
pasiak 29/06/2024

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