Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Today's episode is a real masterclass in writing and

experimentation. It comes from a pretty noted craftsman, Column Tobin. He's written a sequel to his hit

novel, Brooklyn. It's called Long Island, and it follows that book's main character,

Eilish Lacey, years later, now as a mother in her 40s. And in this interview, and Pierce Mary Louise Kelly asked him a couple different versions of, why did you make this writing choice? Oh, why did you make that writing choice? And Tobin talks about just trying something out. He didn't really want to write a sequel, but he just gave it a shot. And if it was bad, he would scrapped it. At other points of the book, he made one decision, decided it wasn't dramatic enough, and he tried a different route. It's a real treat to hear writers like Tobin talk about their process this plainly. Give it a listen after the break. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

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Column Tobin's new novel opens with a heartbreaker of a dilemma. His main character,

Eilish Lacey, opens her front door to a stranger who accuses Eilish's husband of having an affair

with his wife, an affair that has resulted in a

pregnancy. And the stranger threatens to leave the baby once it's born on Elish's doorstep.

What would you do? The novel is titled Long Island, and it follows what Eilish decides to do

and not do when this bombshell turns her

life upside down. Column Tobin, welcome. Thank you. So alert listeners will recognize the name

of your protagonist, Eilish Lacey, because she was at the center of Brooklyn, your celebrated

novel that published back in 2009. Were you always

planning to return to her? Never. I really never thought of it. I don't like sequels and I didn't

think I should do one. What happened was about 10 years after I wrote the original novel, Brooklyn,

that image, that initial image that you've just mentioned, came into my head.

And I thought, I know who that is, and I know what I could do now. And then just without thinking,

really, I said about seeing if I could write the first sequence, the second sequence. And so the

book began, but it wasn't deliberate. It wasn't strategic. But she'd obviously been somewhere in the back of your mind.

And had grown up from a young woman in her 20s to now a middle-aged mother in her 40s,

...