On their arrival in Trieste in 1904, James Joyce left Norah Barnacle outside a railway station while he went to scare up money. A penniless Norah was left alone for almost an entire day and night sitting on their suitcases at the station in a city where she knew no one and where she didn't speak the language. In real life, Norah waited for him. This novel asks - what if she hadn't? In Penelope Unbound, Mary Morrissy weaves a spellbinding speculative history. Sensual, inventive and uproariously funny, Penelope Unbound reimagines a Joycean heroine for the 21st century.