Good Reads with Sarah Siegel

Long Island by Colm Tóibín

Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the 1976 and Eilis, in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door, telling her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep.