![dek](https://content.time.com/time/daily/2009/0905/dt_brooklyn_0518.jpg)
Author Colm Toibin
It's a well-traveled tale a young woman emigrates from small-town Ireland to Brooklyn, N.Y., in the early 1950s in search of a better life but novelist Colm Tóibín (The Master) creates suspense out of the simplest emotions: fear, love and, most poignantly, regret.