Colm Tóibín continues romantic saga of Irish immigrants in the U.S. with Long Island

It’s been well documented that Colm Tóibín never intended to write a sequel to his 2009 novel, Brooklyn. But his latest book, Long Island, revisits the characters and landscapes of that novel, which, in 2015, was adapted into an acclaimed film starring Saoirse Ronan.

Both novels are rich in the details of life, especially in Enniscorthy, Ireland, Tóibín’s hometown.

But there’s a major difference in the resolution of the novels. The certainty of Brooklyn — the main character, Eilis Lacey, returns to America and reunites with her Italian-American husband, Tony Fiorello — gives way to a less tangible resolution in Long Island, with the character Jim Farrell unsure of what to do. Does he follow Eilis to America or remain in Enniscorthy?

“Eilis is going back to America, and she leaves Jim,” Tóibín tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “He doesn't know what he's going to do. There's no rule that says, at the end of a novel, the characters have to know what to do. He simply doesn't know. And there's no point in me telling you what he does.”

Long Island finds Eilis in 1976, now 40 and the mother of two children, living in a cul-de-sac surrounded by Tony's large Italian American family. When an Irishman arrives at her door with devastating news, her response "makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting and suspenseful," according to a synopsis from Simon and Schuster.

Tóibín will further discuss his work when he appears at Carnegie Music Hall on Mon., Sept. 16 as a guest of the Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures Ten Evenings series. Tóibín calls Long Island “the story of a summer, and the summer ends in August" with Jim feeling melancholy. It wasn’t a feeling Tóibín had when he finished the novel, because “you’re never sure about an ending,” he says.

“But I do always feel that funny melancholy at the end of August, at the end of the summer," he says. "I always feel that and I put it in, I gave it to Jim, but it's a feeling I think a lot of us have.”

Midway through Long Island, the perspective shifts from Eilis to Jim and his fiancée, Nancy Sheridan. Tóibín says this point-of-view change suggests that life has gone on since Eilis left.

“So, if you have Eilis coming back, and everything's from her point of view, then there are a number of stories that then can't be told because she doesn't know them,” he says. “Therefore, you have to move into some other perspective in order to have the drama of the book, which arises from the other relationship that's going on between Jim and Nancy."

Tóibín has stated in previous interviews that he never intended to write a sequel to Brooklyn. He has said that he loves the characters in the book, but he didn’t plan to revisit them until a scene came to him, that proved to be the foundation of Long Island.

But given the open-ended resolution of the most recent novel, could there be a third book?

“It takes me years to think of anything,” Tóibín says. “I guess maybe that’s a no. I don’t know. Certainly not at the moment. I would if I could, but I cannot, right?”

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Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures presents Colm Tóibín. 7:30 p.m. Mon., Sept. 16. Carnegie Music Hall. 4440 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $25-35. pittsburghlectures.org