Admitting to a long-held literary lie, the writer reflects on pretending to have finished 'Ulysses', the pressure of canonical reading, and why honesty matters more than performance. It examines shame ...

Now, my darling Nora, I want you to read over and over all I have written to you. Some of it is ugly, obscene and bestial, some of it is pure and holy and spiritual: all of it is myself. Dublin wasn’t ...