The Joyce Girl by Annabel Abbs review – a skilful dance between times
James Joyce’s daughter struggles to align her relationships with her gift for movementAnita Sethi
Sunday 12 June 2016
With admirable narrative control, this debut novel depicts its narrator, Lucia, James Joyce’s daughter, losing control to “ungovernable emotions”. The immensely gripping story skilfully oscillates between Zurich, 1934, where Lucia is having excruciatingly tense sessions as a patient of Dr Carl Jung, and the devastating tale of how, in late 1920s Paris, her life unravelled.
Dancing, declares Lucia, is “the most important thing in my life” and she has a great gift for it, evoking the euphoria of performing before a rapturous audience. Dancing was her “lifebelt”, but when distracted from her vocation, manacled to her father as his muse and fatally attracted to his protege Samuel Beckett, she starts sinking.
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 Joyce Girl is published by Impress
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