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'Long Island' renders bare the universality of longing

In a heartrending follow-up to his beloved 2009 novel, Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín handles uncertainties and moral conundrums with exquisite delicacy, zigzagging through time to a devastating climax.
Source: Scribner

Sometimes a literary character's hold on its author (and readers!) is too strong to ignore. While many sequels feel like attempts to milk a cash cow, others, like Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge novels, bring fresh delight.

Long Island, Colm Tóibín's heartrending follow-up to his beloved 2009 novel, Brooklyn, is the rare instance in which a sequel is every bit as good as the original.

which was further popularized by the eponymous 2015 movie starring Saoirse Ronan, concerns a young

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