Asked recently why he had chosen to write a sequel to his much-loved 2009 novel, Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín said: “The answer is why not? The other answer is that there are very good reasons not. I mean, leave it alone – why interfere with people’s imaginations about what happens to the characters? Also, and this is not true for Hilary Mantel or The Godfather, but in general sequels tend to be pale.”
Not this one. While Tóibín’s palette may be
