James Joyce and Nora Barnacle, seated on a wall in Zurich. Image from the UB James Joyce Collection courtesy of the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.
The fact is no one should be able to read the intimate words that anyone writes to their partnerâthose outpourings are composed for two people only: the lover and the loved. But when youâre writing a novel about Nora Barnacle and James Joyce, and the letters are published and are, well, just
there, they become impossible to ignore.
Whenever I told anyone I was writing a bio-fictional novel about Nora and Joyce, they would remark, with glow-eyed glee, âOh, no doubt youâll include the letters.â And, yes, I have included them. But not quite as you might think.