Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Tóibín's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America--to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"--she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.

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We will meet in the upstairs Treasure Room space from 10 – 11 am. Our Morning Book Club is open to one and all, whether or not you are a Morristown or Morris Township resident.  Please feel free to join us even if you didn’t get a chance to finish the book. Copies of the book are reserved for Book Club members at the main circulation desk.  Ask a librarian for a copy.  If you have any questions about this book club, please email morristownreaders@mmt.mainlib.org with the subject line “Morning Book Club”.

We look forward to seeing you then!