The New York Times – Liesl Schillinger: Colm Toibin?is an expert, patient fisherman of submerged emotions?In tracking the experience, at the remove of half a century, of a girl as unsophisticated and simple as Eilis?a girl who permits herself no extremes of temperament, who accords herself no right to self-assertion?Toibin exercises sustained subtlety and touching respect. He shows no condescension for Eilis's passivity but records her cautious adventures matter-of-factly, as if she were writing them herself in her journal?In Brooklyn, Colm Toibin quietly, modestly shows how place can assert itself, enfolding the visitor, staking its claim.