by Colm Tóibín
First published 2024
Eilis Lacey lives in Lindenhurst, Long Island, surrounded by her husband Tony's extended Italian American family. It's spring 1976, and she has spent decades building a life far from her native Ireland. She works as an accountant, raises two teenage children, and maintains her place in the close-knit Fiorello clan that fills the neighboring houses on their cul-de-sac. One afternoon, while Tony works his plumbing job, a stranger appears at Eilis's door. The Irishman delivers shocking news: his pregnant wife carries Tony's child, and he plans to abandon the baby on Eilis's doorstep after birth. This revelation forces Eilis to confront the isolation she feels within her marriage and the unacknowledged yearning for the Ireland she left behind. Her response to this crisis drives her toward choices that will determine whether she remains trapped in silence or reclaims the connections she thought she had lost forever.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, adult-fiction, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, fish-out-of-water, second-chance
Setting: Ireland, Lindenhurst, Long Island
Period: 1976
294 pages · Hardcover · Scribner