Colm Pose

Colm Toibin,who has written critically lauded novels like Blackwater Lightship and The Master,specialises in an austere,held-in kind of writing that lets characters reveal themselves. But a technique like that needs compelling material — what might have succeeded when addressed to Henry James’ inner life (like in The Master) — just comes across as flat and feelingless when applied to this mundane story of migration and return. The novel sags with extraneous detail (14 pages about a seasickness) and unremarkable thoughts — Eilis’s disorientation on arrival,her wonder that in America her landlady keeps the heating on all night,and her gradual accommodation. While a couple of characters,like her sister Rose and her landlady Mrs Kehoe have intriguing depths,Eilis doesn’t seem to have a single out-of-place instinct.

Toibin’s show-rather-than-tell narrative works best in its handling of social interaction. At one point,the store where Eilis works,Bartocci’s,decides to “welcome coloured women as shoppers”. Eilis and the other salesgirls stare despite themselves,as two beautifully dressed middle-aged women walk in and inspect stockings. Nobody meets anyone’s eye,and the whole exercise is conducted in an atmosphere of acute self-consciousness. Eilis is alert to every detail,from the whiteness of the women’s palms to their elaborate politeness,the desire to pretend everything is normal,the lurking fear. Franz Fanon famously located racial politics in the tension of the muscle — and Toibin handles the stiffness and suppressed significance of the scene masterfully. Toibin’s plainstated style can also produce wrenching emotional effects. He conveys Eilis’s tragedy (that forces her to return to Ireland) with details of how others behave,and Eilis’s thoughts veering between wild grief and detached observation.

But despite these moments,the novel feels hollow inside,mostly because of its singularly uncharismatic heroine. Eilis Lacey seems like an exemplary young girl,a virtuoso book-keeper,a dutiful daughter. She asks anxious questions about her exam and cooks up a storm for a church spread. The details of Eilis’s personal growth are too subtle,and her motivations remain obscure. Things happen to her,but if Toibin intended a kind of Brooklyn bildungsroman,he doesn’t quite pull it off. Toibin’s handling of Eilis’s journey from Enniscorthy to Brooklyn and back,and the steady accumulation of events that don’t quite signify,might strike some readers as a triumph of invisible storytelling. I’d just call it colourless.