The immigrant story: Haven't we read this a thousand times? : Brooklyn

Colm Toibin has emerged as one of the best of the pack of Anglo-Irish writers. I thought The Master was a really fine literary novel, one of the few novels to take on seriously the challenge of making a writers (Henry James) the main character and making him and his life interesting - there was the tremendous interior conflict regarding James's sexual identity that gave Toibin plenty of material to work, and, even better, the novel made me want to go back and read more Henry James. Despite the strengths of that novel and others and his occasional short stories, I think it's too bad that "Brooklyn" has been his Amerian breakout novel (obviously because the American setting made the book more accessible to a wide range of serious American readers, such few as still exist anyway). Brooklyn - I'm more than half-way through - is beautifully written, as is everything Toibin writes, but as a novel it's pretty thin gruel (so far). In many ways the typical immigrant story - young woman leaves poverty behind, comes to America, after early struggles and homesickness forges a new identity for herself as she becomes financially independent and breaks the bonds of family and ethnicity, enjoying the freedoms of the new world. Is this news? Haven't we read this or seen it in film a thousand times? What would make this novel special would be a strong characterization and an engaging conflict of forces or ideas - in other words, character and plot. Eilie, the immigrant, is very indistinct and she just seems to glide through life, her cause championed by one kind soul after another who steps to her defense. Half-way through the book we begin to see emerging issues of racial conflict, and Eilie boldly speaks out against the racism and biases of some of her coterie, but this is not exactly standing up to a lynch mob. Strangely, everything about the novel feels early 20th-century or even 19th-century, and there are few time clues till pretty far in - and I was surprised to learn that the time is the late 40s. I think Toibin doesn't have a really clear idea of what the social and ethnic life was in New York at that time - not sure where or how he did his research (and he evidently did a lot) or if this story is somehow based on a real life - a relative or family friend?