Title Brooklyn : a novel / Colm Tóibín.

SRP 2012 REVIEW: A pleasant and quick read. Enjoyed the historic story of immigrants leaving their homeland and adjusting to the U.S.

SRP 2011 REVIEW: I am a big fan of historical fiction and especially the immigrant experience in America. At first the novel read of the typical experiences of hardships at home and of the protagonist Eilis, a young woman, not even 21, emigrating alone to America to take a job secured by her sister and a priest. It seemed kind of slow in the beginning, but as she deals with homesickness and the choices she makes in her love life that crystalize her future life, it is not a typical immigrant story. It wasn't until she returns home to Ireland after her sister's death that an earlier choice of marriage to a young Italian American does it become apparent (Well, maybe not...) that she made the wrong choice. At the time no other choice seemed available. I did not love the book, but I wish I could give it a 4.5. I was surprised at the research the author picked up about Red Fox colored nylons, one of limited options, worn by African American women at that time. The department store where she worked decided to sell them and the racial tensions that ensued. The author, with this and other incidents reall;y creates a panoramic historical feeling for the sociological phenomen of race at the end of Word War Two. This book was not an award winner like several of his others, but well worth reading.

SRP 2010 REVIEW: Coming of age story of an immigrant Irish girl in the 1950s as she adjusts to life in New York City.