In 1904, having known each other for only three months, a young woman named Nora Barnacle and a not yet famous writer named James Joyce left Ireland together for Europe – unwed. So began a deep and complex partnership, and eventually a marriage, which endured for thirty-seven years.
This is the true story of Nora, the woman who, transformed by Joyce’s imagination, became Molly Bloom, arguably the most famous female character in twentieth-century literature. It is also the story of Ireland, a social history encapsulated in the vivid recreation of Joyce and his small Irish entourage abroad. Ultimately it is the portrait of a relationship – of Nora’s complicated, committed, and at times shocking relationship with a hardworking, hard drinking genius and with his work.
In NORA: THE REAL LIFE OF MOLLY BLOOM, the award-winning biographer Brenda Maddox has given us a powerful new lens through which to see both James Joyce and the woman who was in turn his inspiration and his salvation.