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The Joyce Girl

By: Annabel Abbs
Narrated by: Leith McPherson
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Summary

James Joyce was her father. Samuel Beckett was her lover. This is her story. A mesmerising fictionalisation of Lucia Joyce's life told for the first time.

Paris, 1928. Avant-garde Paris is buzzing with the latest ideas in art, music and literature from artists such as Ford Madox Ford and Zelda Fitzgerald. Lucia, the talented and ambitious daughter of controversial genius James Joyce, is making her name as a dancer. But when Lucia falls passionately in love with budding writer (and fellow Irish expat) Samuel Beckett, he is banned from the Joyce family home.

1934. Her life in tatters, Lucia is sent to pioneering psychoanalyst Carl Jung. For years she has kept quiet. Now she decides to speak.

Profoundly moving and stunningly written, The Joyce Girl brings to light the untold tale of Lucia Joyce. It will entrance and educate you. You will fall in love with this compelling woman, but she will break your heart, too.

©2016 Annabel Abbs (P)2018 Hachette Australia Audio
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Critic reviews

"A hugely impressive debut. Annabel Abbs has brought to life an extraordinary cast of characters - Joyce, Beckett et al. - and painted their rackety, bohemian world in vivid technicolour." ( The Observer)
"Here is a powerful portrait of a young woman yearning to be an artist, whose passion for life and rage at being unable to fulfil her talent burns from the pages." ( The Guardian)
"Funny, clever, tragic, poignant." ( Australian Women's Weekly)

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Insightful

A very insightful filling-in-the-gaps interpretation of the probable life of the woman whose own words have been destroyed. Worth listening to

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