Nora

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.