In his new book Colm Toibin delineates with a tender and unique sensibility lives of unspoken or unconscious longing, of individuals, often willingly, cast adrift from their history. From the Irish woman returning to Dublin and discovering a city that refuses to acknowledge her long absence, to the young Pakistani man who seeks some kind of permanence in a strange town, each of the stories in The Empty Family miraculously contains whole worlds. 2011