Brooklyn
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3.9 • 17 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
'I couldn't be more privileged to bring this beautiful book to life...' Saoirse Ronan
'I have long been a big admirer of Saoirse Ronan's work... she has made the words come alive with her voice.' Colm Tóibín
Young Eilis Lacey dreams of life beyond the confines of her tiny Irish village, but unlike her beautiful sister, Rose, Eilis' gifts are of a more practical nature: she has a head for numbers, and is a loving and dutiful daughter. Yet her ambition cannot be hidden and soon is noted by the Parish Priest, Father Flood. Via a church contact, he arranges for Eilis to travel to America where a job opportunity has arisen in New York with a reputable 'merchant of Italian origin'.
Eilis finds lodgings in an eccentric boarding house and ekes out an existence in the cosmopolitan melting pot that is 1950s Brooklyn, impressing her employer, outwitting her landlady, and even falling in love. It seems her dream is truly becoming a reality. But then fate intervenes: a family crisis back home forces Eilis to make a choice between the past and the future, the old world and the new.
Told with a masterful and elegant simplicity, Brooklyn is a sublime Trans-Atlantic coming-of-age story by one of the UK's greatest living writers.
Praise for Brooklyn
'Tóibín's most beautifully executed novel to date' The Times Literary Supplement
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Having played the lead role in the film adaptation, Saoirse Ronan returns to narrate the audiobook edition of Brooklyn. Once again, she inhabits the role of young Irishwoman Eilis Lacey, who leaves her homeland in the mid-20th century to try her luck in the titular borough of New York. Love, longing and the tyranny of choice are all deeply embedded themes here, and a significant part of author Colm Tóibín’s charm is his ability to evoke time and place with remarkable clarity. What unfolds is a quietly powerful story about belonging, identity and the difficult choices that shape a life.
