Vendor
	Fletcher Agency Melissa Chinchillo
Original language
English
Categories
Biography, Literature & Literary studies Fiction: general & literary Biographical fiction
Weblink
www.nualaoconnor.com

NORA

Nuala O'Connor

A Love Story of Nora and James Joyce

Acclaimed Irish novelist Nuala O’Connor’s bold reimagining of the life of James Joyce’s wife, muse, and the model for Molly Bloom in Ulysses is a “lively and loving paean to the indomitable Nora Barnacle” (Edna O’Brien).

Dublin, 1904. Nora Joseph Barnacle is a twenty-year-old from Galway working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel. She enjoys the liveliness of her adopted city and on June 16—Bloomsday—her life is changed when she meets Dubliner James Joyce, a fateful encounter that turns into a lifelong love. Despite his hesitation to marry, Nora follows Joyce in pursuit of a life beyond Ireland, and they surround themselves with a buoyant group of friends that grows to include Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and Sylvia Beach.

But as their life unfolds, Nora finds herself in conflict between their intense desire for each other and the constant anxiety of living in poverty throughout Europe. She desperately wants literary success for Jim, believing in his singular gift and knowing that he thrives on being the toast of the town, and it eventually provides her with a security long lacking in her life and his work. So even when Jim writes, drinks, and gambles his way to literary acclaim, Nora provides unflinching support and inspiration, but at a cost to her own happiness and that of their children.

With gorgeous and emotionally resonant prose, Nora is a heartfelt portrayal of love, ambition, and the quiet power of an ordinary woman who was, in fact, extraordinary.

Nuala O'Connor lives in County Galway. In 2019 she won the James Joyce Quarterly competition to write the missing story from Dubliners, 'Ulysses'. Her short story 'Gooseen', about Nora Barnacle, won the UK's 2018 Short Fiction Prize, was published in Granta and was shortlisted for Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Her fourth novel, Becoming Belle, was published to critical acclaim in 2018 in the US and Ireland and will be published in the UK in June 2019. Nuala is the founding editor at new flash e-zine Splonk.

Available products
Book Published by HarperCollins

Comments

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/03/15/imagining-nora-barnacles-love-letters-to-james-joyce/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/books/review/better-luck-next-time-julia-claiborne-johnson.html

In light of Brenda Maddox’s brilliant and exhaustive biography of Nora Barnacle—wife and muse of the writer James Joyce—and the 2000 film, Nora, about the couple’s relationship, a novel of Nora’s life might seem redundant or unnecessary. It isn’t. In fact, Nora by Nuala O’Connor is marvelous. Of course, by delving into Nora’s life, O’Connor must also write about one of the great geniuses of the English language. This would be dangerous territory for a lesser writer, but O’Connor has the literary chops to get the job done. Her lyrical style and Irish colloquialisms capture the essence of their feelings for each other as well for their home country. In Nora’s voice, she tells us, “Jim says I am harp and shamrock, tribe and queen. I am high cross and crowned heart, held between two hands.”
The novel begins on Bloomsday (June 16) in 1904 with an early sexual encounter between the ever-lusty couple. From there we follow the peripatetic wanderings of the pair as they travel from Dublin to Trieste to Zurich to Paris and back to Zurich. Along the way they have children, live (and fight) with Joyce’s siblings, and make friends and enemies across the continent, surviving hand-to-mouth one day and high-on-the-hog the next. They endure wars, illnesses, and madness. None of it is easy. Joyce drinks too much. He flirts with other women. He falsely accuses Nora of betrayal. But throughout all their travails, a powerful bond persists, as does Joyce’s passion for his art. O’Connor shows us just how integral Nora was to Joyce’s writing and to his success, and one comes away from this book with the sense that without Nora Barnacle, there would be no James Joyce.

Feature in Publisher’s Weekly:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/85341-10-things-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-james-and-nora-joyce.html

The Week’s 21 Books to read in 2021 List:
https://theweek.com/articles/958539/23-books-read-2021

Review in The Free Lance Star:
https://fredericksburg.com/entertainment/arts/books/book-review-nora-a-serene-worthy-addition-to-joyce-canon/article_ed37fe73-8ca7-5781-95c3-bd7ea063fda4.html

Vogue’s Best Books to read in 2021:
https://www.vogue.com/article/best-books-2021

Interview in LitHub:
https://lithub.com/on-writing-nora-joyce-into-biographical-fiction/

Audio link to give sense of the gorgeous prose:
https://twitter.com/HarperAudio/status/1346547200436932609

O’Connor (Becoming Belle) expands on her Granta award-winning short story, “Gooseen” in this poignant, comprehensive portrait of Nora Barnacle as a young woman, mother, and literary inspiration for the Molly Bloom character in Ulysses. Nora and James Joyce’s inseparable attachment begins in Dublin on June 16, 1904 (forever remembered as Bloomsday for the setting of Joyce’s masterpiece) and stretches to 1951. Narrated in Nora’s robust voice and carried by details saturated in filth, such as a walk along the Liffey river that “smells like a pisspot spilling its muck into the sea,” the narrative traces Nora and Joyce’s nomadic life from Ireland to Trieste, Zurich, London, Rome, and Paris, and details their constant money worries, health concerns, struggles with two difficult children, and emotional despair. Despite their personal and professional achievements, and a circle of friends that includes Sylvia Beach, the Guggenheim sisters, Samuel Beckett, Ezra Pound, and other literati, the couple suffers loneliness and “mutual melancholy.” An inscription on a bracelet that Joyce gives Nora underscores their commitment to one another: “love is unhappy when love is away.” O’Connor’s admirable accomplishment adds to the abundant Joyceana with a moving examination of an unforgettable family. (Jan.)