Lucia

Description

AGLOBE & MAILRECOMMENDED SUMMER 2021 READA writer possessed of unusual indeed, extraordinary powers Read [Lucia] with your eyes wide open.The GuardianShe is about thirty-three, speaks French fluently. . .[she] is gay, sweet and ironic, but she has bursts of anger over nothing when she is confined to a straightjacket, writes James Joyce in one of the few surviving documents concerning his daughter. A gifted dancer, Becketts lover, an aspiring writerwhat little we know about Lucia Joyce effectively ends with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and subsequent hospitalization: after her death, her nephew Stephen, executor of the Joyce estate, burned her letters and medical records, erasing her not only from her fathers legacy, but from her own existence in the world as well.To tell the story of a life redacted, Alex Pheby assumes not Lucia Joyces lost voice, but the perspectives of the men around her, layering a series of narratives about those on the edges of her life to create a portrait of the lost woman in silhouette. As much a critique of male violence and the long history of misogyny in womens health, an in-absentia illustration of the fate of inconvenient women as the story of a single life,Luciais an ethical and empathetic creative act and a moving in memoriam to a woman whose experiences we can only imagine.Praise forLuciaAn air of mystery has always clung to Lucia Joycedaughter of writer James, dancer and lover of, among others, Samuel Beckett and Alexander Calder In an original, bravura turn, British novelist Alex Pheby tells Lucias story from the perspective of the various men around her (spoiler alert: none come off well).Globe & MailMadness, toy soldiers and tapeworms. Alex Pheby is not only a whizz at finding the tortured connections that underpin the Twentieth Century, its wars and its art, but his compassion for Lucia Joyce has an extraordinary effect: it speaks up for girls and women everywhere. Bravo.Lucy Ellmann, author ofDucks, NewburyportThis novel is full of the worlds richness, and wittily, sympathetically describes our falls in trying to grasp it. It deals not just in emotional terms, but in what is really here, what we actually have to work with during our lives. Pheby achieves this not by stuffing the book full of things, but in doing quite the opposite: he takes a small number of carefully chosen objectsyou might call them fetishesand constructs a universe every bit as frightening as the real thing.The Herald ScotlandIntensely moving luminously delicate [Luciais] an ambitious and daring investigation of consciousness, agency, selfhood, mental disorder, medical callousness and misogyny.TLSAn emotionally powerful and constantly questioning novel [Pheby] sets the standard for fictional biography.Irish TimesPheby is a writer possessed of unusualindeed, extraordinarypowers. HisLuciais a fully accomplished account of a troubled and troubling life. Most importantly, he does not spare himself from the accusations of appropriation and exploitation that are levelled throughout the book towards others.The GuardianGuiding us through the mystery is Phebys precise writing, that carefully handles the historical material while also drawing on elements of horror and fairy tales Luciamakes a new reading of the Joycean lore possible. In that sense Phebys novel is part of a larger cultural corrective on Lucias behalf.Full Stop