Book Club Guide

Brooklyn

by Colm Tóibín · 2009 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The immigrant's impossible choice — the life you left or the life you built
Loneliness, self-reinvention and what cannot be left behind
Duty, deception and the small lies that become irreversible

About this book

Eilis Lacey, a young Irish woman, leaves County Wexford for Brooklyn in the early 1950s, finding work, education and an unexpected romance — only to be pulled back to Ireland by a family tragedy. Tóibín's quietly devastating novel is about the particular sorrow of the immigrant: the impossible choice between the life you have built and the world you left behind.

Published in 2009, Brooklyn was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and has since been widely studied on A-level syllabi. It was adapted into a successful film in 2015. Tóibín draws on his own family's history of emigration from County Wexford.

Discussion questions

Eilis builds a life in Brooklyn that she didn't know she wanted, then is pulled back to Ireland by her sister's death. How does Tóibín present the competing claims of the two lives — and does he allow the reader a clear preference?
The novel's prose style is very controlled and understated — almost stripped of feeling. How does this restraint serve the emotional content, and what would a more expressive style lose?
Eilis's deception at the novel's end has divided readers. How do you read her choice — as cowardice, as self-preservation, or as something more morally complex?
The novel is set in the 1950s but clearly resonates with contemporary readers. What in the immigrant experience it describes feels timeless — and what is specific to that particular moment of Irish emigration?
Tóibín has spoken about drawing on his own family's emigration to America. How does the autobiographical resonance affect your reading of the novel — and does it change how you understand Eilis's character?