Bonus Episode - Alternate Histories #4 : The Joyce Girl

Today on Alternate Histories, I am joined by UK writer and novelist Annabel Abbs. "Annabel has a degree in English Literature from the University of East Anglia and a Masters in Marketing from the University of Kingston After fifteen years running a consultancy, she took a career break to bring up her four children, before returning to her first love, literature. Her debut novel, The Joyce Girl, won the 2015 Impress Prize for New Writing and the 2015 Spotlight First Novel Award, and was longlisted for the 2015 Caledonia Novel Award and the 2015 Bath Novel Award." She joins my from her home in London via Zoom to discuss The Joyce Girl: A Novel of Jazz Age Paris.

"The review in the Paris Times in November 1928 is rapturous in its praise of Lucia Joyce’s skill and artistry as a dancer. The family has made their home in Paris—where the latest ideas in art, music, and literature converge. Acolytes regularly visit the Joyce apartment to pay homage to Ireland’s exiled literary genius. Among them is a tall, thin young man named Samuel Beckett—a fellow Irish expat who idolizes Joyce and with whom Lucia becomes romantically involved.

Lucia is both gifted and motivated, training tirelessly with some of the finest teachers in the world. Though her father delights in his daughter’s talent, she clashes with her mother, Nora. And as her relationship with Beckett sours, Lucia’s dreams unravel, as does her hope of a life beyond her father’s shadow.

With Lucia’s behavior growing increasingly erratic, James Joyce sends her to pioneering psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Here, at last, she will tell her own story—a fascinating, heartbreaking account of thwarted ambition, passionate creativity, and the power of love to both inspire and destroy.

The Joyce Girl creates a compelling and moving account of the real-life Joyce Girl, of unrealized dreams and rejection, and of the destructive love of a father."

Learn more about Annabel Abbs at www.annabelabbs.com

This podcast is part of Straight Up Strange Productions. Check out www.straightupstrange.com for more shows like this one.