Colm Tóibín

Brooklyn

Published 2009-05-05 · 262 pages

In Ireland in the early 1950s, Eilis Lacey is one of many who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving behind her family and country, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady's intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation. Slowly, the pain of parting is buried beneath the rhythms of her new life -- and finally, she begins to realize that she has found a sort of happiness.

Nora Webster

The Blackwater Lightship

From back cover: A ... story about three generations of an estranged family reuniting to mourn an untimely death. It is the early 1990s, and Helen ..., her mother Lily, and her grandmother Dora, have come together in a crumbling old house along Ireland's coastal southeast to tend to Helen's adored brother Declan, who is dying of AIDS. With two of Declan's friends, the six of them are forced to plumb the shoals of their own histories and to come to terms with each other.

The Heather Blazing

245 pages

The Magician

The Master

356 pages

In January 1895 Henry James anticipates the opening of his first play, Guy Domville, in London. The production fails, and he returns, chastened and humiliated, to his writing desk. The result is a string of masterpieces, but they are produced at a high personal cost.

The Testament of Mary

From inside front cover: In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives in exile, years after her son's crucifixion. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel -- her keepers, who provide her with food and shelter and visit her regularly. ... Living alone and in fear, she tries to piece together the events that led to her son's brutal death, and judges herself ruthlessly for not remaining at the foot of the cross until her son died, for fleeing to save herself. ...