The Joyce Girl by Annabel Abbs

 Lucia Joyce (1907-1982) is a talented dancer. Her talents extend to singing, painting, and plying the piano. She is the muse for her father’s books. Despite making her name as a dancer, she is known as James Joyce’s daughter. This story brings a few years of her life, when she is the most successful in her career, trying to be recognized under her own name and not her father’s. These are a short few years before she is diagnosed with mental illness.

Paris, 1928. Lucia wants to be recognized for her talents and not her father’s. At 21, she meets young Samuel Beckett, who is teaching English in Paris and who wants to be a great scholar. She is smitten with him from the very beginning.

With her hard work of constant dance practices, she becomes one of the greatest dancer and choreographers. Her career develops parallel to her love story, which may not be progressing as fast as her career and as fast as she’d like it. Paris is “the dance center of the world,” where dancers are “forging a whole new philosophy of movement, or rhythm.” And she wants to be part of that.

The romantic love with Beckett propels her to extraordinary. It gives her courage and audacity. She feels liberated. But at the same time, her genius father needs her as his muse. She is torn and forced to go with her family wherever they take her and put her career on hold.

A trip with her family gives her a clear vision. She needs to take control of her fate and to remove herself from the “suffocating, clawing influence” of her family. But when a job offer in Germany comes her way, she is pushed again into guilt as her father going blind needs her.

When one lie after another comes out and her overprotected parents suffocate her, she continues to retreat inside herself. Resulting in nightmares and violent behavior, which materializes in her real life.

Zurich, 1934. The story alternates with her having psychoanalysis with Dr. Jung, who tries to find out why she never moved out on her own; why her parents treated her like a child; why it’s so hard for her to reach to her childhood and reveal what he is looking for in order to help her.

This story is a touching portrayal of a young ambitious woman, who craves independence and is constantly sheltered by her parents. She has a loving relationship with her father, but clashes with her mother. When she craves her brother’s love, he craves comfort. He feels humiliated by his, once, family’s poverty. Once “the best and closest of friends.” Now, they drift because of her refusal to marry an aristocrat. She can’t marry for money. That’s not in her.

Poignantly imagined, this tragic and moving story reveals a talented young woman, who works tirelessly to come out of her father’s shadow, only to downfall because of her father’s destructive love.

Woven with vivid imagination, beautiful prose and a tinge of humor, making it a fascinating read.

Release date: 2 June 2020

Source: William Morrow