This engrossing, ground-breaking book challenges the long-held conviction that prior to the second divorce referendum of 1995 Irish people could not obtain a divorce that gave them the right to remarry. Joyce knew otherwise, as Peter Kuch reveals-obtaining a decree absolute in Edwardian Ireland, rather than separation from bed and board, was possible. Bloom's "Divorce, not now" and Molly's "suppose I divorced him"-whether whim, wish, fantasy, or conviction-reflects an Irish practice of petitioning the English court, a ruse that, even though it was known to lawyers, judges, and politicians at...