PositiveThe London Review of BooksIn his portrayal of an ethnic enclave, a hyphenated America, Tóibín is broaching one of the big perennial subjects of American fiction…Brooklyn is unusual in telling the story from the immigrant’s perspective, the more so since Tóibín’s protagonist is female, young, unattached and Irish … It is what Eilis cannot put in a letter that gives Brooklyn its narrative bite...But Tóibín can tell us, and he does so at often hilarious length … It may be that Tóibín’s most significant gift is a very basic and mysterious one: he creates fictional worlds in which readers find it easy to believe … This ability to vivify imagined worlds is central to Brooklyn’s success. So long as we remain with Eilis Lacey in New York, her new world engrosses and enthrals us.
