In the fifty-eighth episode of GREAT PODVERSATIONS, novelist, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright, and poet COLM TÓIBÍN discusses his book Long Island, with bestselling author, playwright, and Kentucky Poet Laureate SILAS HOUSE.
Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah’s Book Club Pick. Tóibín’s Brooklyn was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan. Long Island is the quietly heartbreaking sequel, exploring societal pressures and expectations, longing, regret, secrets, and desire. Eilis Lacey’s return to Ireland in mid-life provides the backdrop for a nuanced and exquisite examination of personal choice and destiny.
Tóibín also authored The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of a Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Tóibín has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize, and has won the IMPAC award. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.
Silas House was inducted as the Poet Laureate of Kentucky for 2023-2025. He is a bestselling author of seven novels, one book of creative nonfiction, and four plays. His most recent novel, Lark Ascending, was a Booklist Editors’ Choice and is the winner of the Southern Book Prize, the Nautilus Book Award, and other honors. He was the recipient of the Duggins Prize, the largest award for an LGBTQ writer in the nation and was named Appalachian of the Year in a nationwide poll. House is also a Grammy finalist. Recently his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, Garden & Gun, The New York Times, and many others.
Long Island by Colm Tóibín
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
Lark Ascending by Silas House
Original air date: 05/9/25
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