Homecomings and Hidden Scandals: Dissecting Colm Tóibín’s Long Island

 

In the fourth episode of the Irish Books Podcast, host Dr Chris Murray and guest Matthew Ryan delve into the highly anticipated sequel to Brooklyn: Colm Tóibín’s Long Island.

Returning to the character of Eilis Lacey a quarter of a century after the events of the first novel, Tóibín picks up the thread in 1976. The discussion explores how a successful immigrant life in America is suddenly dismantled by a domestic crisis that forces a return to Enniscorthy.

A Crisis on the Doorstep

The novel opens with a shocking confrontation: an Irishman arrives at Eilis’s home in a quiet Long Island cul-de-sac, claiming her husband, Tony, has made his wife pregnant and threatening to leave the baby on Eilis’s doorstep.

• The Weight of Silence: Eilis is notably reticent about her unhappiness, a characteristic that defines the novel's tension.

• The "Cul-de-Sac" Surveillance: Despite being thousands of miles from Ireland, Eilis is surrounded by her Italian-American in-laws, whose patriarchal structure offers little room for her own autonomy.

• The Flight to Wexford: To gain space while the crisis unfolds, Eilis uses her mother’s 80th birthday as a reason to return to Ireland, hoping the situation will be resolved before she comes back.

The Myth of the Glamorous Return

When Eilis arrives in Enniscorthy, she is no longer the passive girl seen in ‘Brooklyn’. She carries the glamour of America - symbolised by her rented car and high-end handbags but this transformation makes her a threatening figure to the locals.

• The Static Bachelor: Eilis reignites an affair with Jim Farrell, her love interest from the first novel. While Eilis has evolved, Jim has remained static in his family pub, seemingly unable to make his own choices.

• Transatlantic Gossip: The podcast highlights how surveillance and gossip connect New York to Wexford. Nancy Sheridan, now a widow and business owner, becomes Eilis’s rival, whose social manoeuvring protects her own interests.

The Sea: A Space of Freedom and Reveal

A recurring motif in Tóibín’s work, the sea serves as a pivotal setting where everything hidden finally becomes visible.

• Desire and Exposure: The hosts discuss a scene at the coast where Eilis and Jim are discovered by Nancy in a place where there is nowhere to hide.

• The Shoreline of Possibility: The sea represents the open possibility of leaving, and the unstable nature of desire. As the discussion notes, there is a naked honesty to the sea because everything - and everyone - is visible.

Listen to the Full Discussion

Is Eilis a wrecking ball destroying local lives, or is she finally asserting the autonomy she lacked as a young migrant? Join Chris and Matt as they debate the agonising tension of Tóibín’s prose and whether a return home is ever truly possible.

Listen to Episode 4: Colm Tóibín’s 'Long Island' wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Irish Books Podcast is proudly produced by East Coast Studio with support from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Embassy of Ireland Australia, and Monash University.

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Squalor, Style, and Subtext: Eimear McBride’s The City Changes its Face

In the third episode of The Irish Books Podcast, host Dr Chris Murray and guest Frances Devlin-Glass (Artistic Director of Bloomsday Melbourne & editor of Australasian Journal of Irish Studies and the online magazine, Tinteán) are discussing Eimear McBride’s sequel to The Lesser Bohemians: the visceral, ambitious The City Changes Its Face.

Set against the bohemian backdrop of mid-90s London, the novel explores a world of love after addiction, complex domestic dynamics, and unspeakable parts of the human psyche.

A Bohemian Triangle in Camden

The story follows Eily, an Irish teenager who has spent two years in a torrid relationship with Stephen, a much older actor. Their lives are upended by the arrival of Stephen’s estranged daughter, Grace, who is much the same age as Eily herself.

• A Vulnerable Domesticity: The trio navigates a cramped apartment in Camden where the walls are thin, heightening the tension between Eily’s sexual neediness and the awkward reality of Stephen as a father

• The Film as Apology: The narrative centres on a screening of an autobiographical film Stephen has made about his past as a drug addict - a work that serves as an apology to his daughter for the fallout of his childhood.

  

Experimental Style: Breaking the Sentence

True to McBride’s reputation as an "experimental" writer, the novel is defined by its linguistic gymnastics.

• Linguistic Virtuosity: McBride employs neologisms and inventive adverbs like "spoon-standingly" strong or "echoly puking"

• Visual Monologues: The text uses variations in font size to signify interior monologues, registering Eily’s uncertainty and lack of confidence in her relationship directly on the page

• The Power of Subtext: Drawing on her acting background, McBride requires the reader to "read for subtext," often using unfinished or broken sentences to explore the limits of intimacy.

Speaking the Unspeakable

The discussion moves into the darker themes of the novel, particularly McBride's fearless approach to the legacy of abuse.

• The Cycle of Trauma: The pair discuss how Stephen’s history of childhood abuse intersects with his vulnerability in the London drug scene, where he was often exploited

• Creativity as Catharsis: The podcast explores whether McBride suggests that "the catharsis of creativity" through Stephen’s film and perhaps Eily’s own writing - offers a way to put trauma behind them

• A "Grunge" Modernism: While McBride is often tagged as a modernist, Frances argues she is "very much of our times," using her work to speak back to power and address sexual excesses once hidden in Irish life.

Listen to the Full Discussion

Does fiction need to explain everything away, or is the mystery of Eily’s backstory more powerful left unsaid? 

Listen to Episode 3 on Eimear McBride’s The City Changes its Face wherever you get your podcasts.

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The City Changes its Face

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