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Long Island

The unputdownable, searing love story of the summer and instant Sunday Times bestseller

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Long Island

By: Colm Tóibín
Narrated by: Jessie Buckley
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About this listen

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

OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK
AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4


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?

Best of 2024 City Life Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Urban World Literature Heartfelt

Critic reviews

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 (Megan Nolan)
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 (Elizabeth Strout)
Heartbreak, wistfulness, cracking dialogue . . . This is Tóibín at his best (Robbie Millen)
Morally and pscyhologically meaty . . . Engrossing, truthful and humane, [Long Island] is a magnificent achievement (Johanna Thomas-Corr)
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. (Clare Clark)
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
Exquisitely drawn
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.
Tóibín [is] a master of his art . . . exquisite
Compellingly readable, carefully constructed, and beautifully written. Once you start, you'll be hooked
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
All stars
Most relevant
Brooklyn first - enjoyable read. Had me gripped and just wanted to get to the end to hear the out ome

Beautiful and captivating

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It is just such a pleasure to hear this book, read beautifully but I was very disappointed by the too open ending.

I loved this story

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Jessie Buckley was exactly the right pick for this. Her voice moves the story along beautifully, and the subtly different character voices are just sublime. Great work

Great mix of story and voice

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Good main character portrayal and non judgemental narration by writer. Good performance of the book.

Another good work by CT

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Great book, beautifully read. I would highly recommend, it pulls you in. I read it straight after Brooklyn and loved them both

Great book, beautifully read

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