Book interview: Nuala O'Connor adds flesh to the bones of a famous lifelong obsession
Ewan McGregor playing the part of James Joyce with Susan Lynch as Nora Barnacle in a scene from the film 'Nora'
Nuala O’Connor’s newly released novel, Nora – the love story between James Joyce and Nora Barnacle is a glorious read. Spanning the time from the couple’s meeting in Dublin, when Nora, a 20-year-old from Galway fell for Joyce’s charms, charting their rackety life together on the continent, and years of parenthood, it shows us the stages their enduring love went through – from the early struggles until the glory days when Joyce’s literary genius was recognised.
Unflinching – it presents the story from Nora’s point of view, and in her voice. And this is the real strength of the endeavour. The tone remains true from the first pages, where there is an erotic, bawdy tone, until the last, making it an engrossing, captivating and page turning read.
Nuala has had a lifetime’s obsession with Joyce.
“His books were always in the house,” she says, on zoom from her home in Ballinasloe. “I read Dubliners and Portrait of an Artist as a teenager. I grew up in Palmerston, in West Dublin and we crossed the Anna Livia Bridge to get to school and went by the Mullingar House, and then by the House of the Dead into town, so Joyce was ever present. I felt he was one of us. His language was very much our language; both my parents grew up where I did.” This fifth novel started as a story, back in 2010.
“I was walking down the town, here in Ballinasloe, and Nora’s voice came at me. The story won a prize and was published in Granta. And I wasn’t ready to leave Nora, because once you get a voice you are on a roll.” Nuala did prodigious research, reading the biographies by Ellman and Maddox, and testimonies from the Joyce’s friends. And, having lived in Galway, the author felt close to Nora’s roots.
“But I don’t do what Emma Donoghue does, and read the research for two years and then begin,” she says. “I have the arc of the story. Then I tend to drip-feed the research to myself. I researched by night and wrote by day. That suits me. It creates a rhythm.” Then laughing, she admits that it also makes the novel all-encompassing. “It takes over your life,” she says.
It’s clear she adores the couple.
“Nora was so self-confident,” she says. “They both were. Wherever they got their self-belief they both had it in spades. Nora was naturally optimistic, a pragmatist, so she was better able to deal with people. He had a natural introversion that, I think, goes hand in hand with being a writer. He drank, I think, to deal with his social life.” In common with most people in Ireland at the time, Nora had little education, and left school aged 12. She couldn’t hope to match ‘Jim,’ as she called James, intellectually, yet she never felt a need to apologise. She often, laughingly, rubbished his books. Yet she was a great conduit for his art, her voice and storytelling proving constant inspiration for him.
Nuala takes us through all Joyce’s struggles, to earn from his work, and find publication, while the couple ricochet around the continent, living, literally, hand to mouth. His efforts to complete Ulysses are ever present, yet when Nuala penned Nora, she’d read various extracts from the novel, but had never read it straight through. Finishing the novel in February 2019, she decided to put that right. She joined a class at the Joyce Centre in Dublin, and read it with a group, meeting weekly.
“That was brilliant,” she said. “Some were very knowledgeable, others, like me, were first timers.” Nuala has always been a prolific reader. Her sister, Nessa, who has, sadly, since died from cancer, guided the teenage Nuala’s reading.
“She was four years older than me, and we were best friends,” she says. “Nessa led me into Somerset Maughan, Evelyn Waugh and EM Forster along with the Brontë’s, and she took me to Howarth in Yorkshire” Nuala was an early writer too, coming second in a national poetry competition at the age of nine.
“My eldest sister recently unearthed a letter from me, aged 11 or 12, going on about how I was going to be a famous novelist one day.” Educated through Irish, Nuala went on to study the language at Trinity College Dublin, before gaining a Masters in Irish/English Translation Studies from Dublin City University. Her jobs since then, in libraries, bookshops and at a writing centre, have all reflected her love of literature.
“I’m always drawn to that,” she says.
Her first publication, in 2003, was a collection of poetry. A novel, You, came in 2010. Well reviewed, it didn’t make any prize lists, and that, Nuala says, was disappointing. We discuss the current crop of young Irish writers, and the attention so many of them receive.
“It’s hot again to be an Irish writer,” Nuala says. “I’m now 51. For my age group it was, ‘where are all the Irish writers?’ And I was like, ‘We are here; you’re just ignoring us!” A self-confessed introvert, she wonders if being in the public eye back then would have suited her.
“I don’t think I would have coped well with the busyness that comes with having the ultra-hit book with the advent of social media,” she says. “And the PR and marketing are the least interesting side of writing.” There was another contemporary novel, The Closet of Savage Memories, before the author switched to historical bio-fiction. Miss Emily giving voice to the relationship between the poet Emily Dickinson and her Irish Maid, and Becoming Belle, fictionising the life of a Victorian feminist both received rave reviews. This latest endeavour confirms the author’s skill at giving voice to women from the past.
Nuala had great plans for 2020 – the year she turned fifty – and those did not include writing a novel.“I was going to take lots of holidays, which I never normally take, but when Covid hit, all of that went out of the window. It’s been a year of great change for me.” Not all those changes have been positive.
“My father died in July – he caught Covid in hospital. We didn’t get to see him, but the hospital sent us videos and he was getting visibly smaller. Then my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. My siblings and I are minding her on a roster. We all do our bit,” she says. “I joined the carer’s Association and got my carer’s card so that I can travel. I go up to Dublin every second week. It’s such a privilege. She’s so happy and well cared for.” On a happier note, being at home more, with her husband, Finbar, and two of their three children has helped her explore new avenues. Loving baking, she’s also discovered the pleasures of gardening. But she’s happiest when she’s out in her writing shed, so the original plan to leave novel writing aside has gone by the board.
“I tend to live in my head a lot,” she says. “As an introvert I am analysing all the time; thinking and plotting and mulling things over. When I write I am elsewhere, and I find that a relief. I’m away from the chattering in my head.
“Writing is my job and my joy and its very much tied into to my mental health. If I don’t write, I’m an unlikeable version of myself. I’m crabby and not good to be around. It’s better for everyone if I write.”
- Nuala O’Connor
- New Island, €16.95. Kindle: €5.95
