Brooklyn was published by Viking in 2009, won the Costa Novel Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The 2015 film adaptation, with Saoirse Ronan as Eilis, received three Academy Award nominations.
Eilis Lacey leaves Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the early 1950s — not fleeing anything but simply because there is nothing for her in Ireland: no work, no prospects, no life beyond her mother’s house and her sister’s shadow. A priest arranges a passage to Brooklyn, a job in a department store, and a room in a boarding house run by an Irish landlady.
In Brooklyn, Eilis is miserable, then gradually less so. She enrolls in bookkeeping classes at Brooklyn College. She meets Tony Fiorello, a quiet Italian-American plumber, at an Irish dance. They fall in love and secretly marry. Then her sister dies suddenly, and Eilis returns to Wexford — where a different life presents itself: a man, a job, a return to the community she left.
The novel’s power is in the simplicity of its moral dilemma: Eilis has married Tony, and she loves him. But Ireland offers her belonging, warmth, and a version of herself she recognizes. The choice between Brooklyn and Wexford is not between good and bad but between two genuine goods — and choosing one means killing the other.
Collecting Brooklyn
First edition (Viking, London, 2009): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $30–$80
- Signed first: $80–$200