Exiles is a novel by James Joyce . The basic premise of Exiles involves a love triangle between Richard Rowan, a Dublin writer recently returned from exile in Rome, Bertha his common law wife , and his old friend Robert Hand a journalist. There are obvious parallels to be drawn with Joyce's own life – Joyce and Nora Barnacle lived, unmarried, in Trieste, during the years the fictional Rowans were living in Rome, while Robert Hand is roughly the same age of Joyce's friends Oliver St. John Gogarty and Vincent Cosgrave, and shares some characteristics with them both. This arrangement is slightly complicated by a second love triangle, involving Rowan, Hand, and Hand's cousin Beatrice Justice. The fictional Beatrice, who in the play has recovered from a life-threatening illness, is just two years younger than Joyce's cousin Elizabeth Justice, who died in 1912.