The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle

But when they are married, Charlo turns out to be violent and abusive and after seventien years, when he wants to do the same with Nicola she kicks him out and raise her kids alone. Before she fell in love with Charlo she went with lots of boys from her neighbourhood.

The story begins when Paula is told that Carlo has been shot by the police after killing a woman in a robbery. Most of the characters I would prefer not to meet, especially Charlo, because he's very violent. If I have to get to know a character it would be Paula, because she's a very strong woman, kicking Charlo out and trying to get her alcoholproblem under control (she drinks only after Jack is in bed). She has four kids: Nicola, Leanne, John Paul and Jack and she lost a baby after a fist from Charlo, she calls her Sally. She loves him, but she also hates him because of the battering. She's addicted to alcohol, because Charlo abused her. This new novel is Roddy Doyle's best to date.The main character is Paula O'Leary. Roddy Doyle's unsparing examination of a brutal marriage transcends the boundaries of class and nationhood The Times Paula Spencer may be Doyle's most successful literary creation yet, a tour de force of literary ventriloquism that gives the lie to the old writing workshop canard that a man can't write from the point of view of a woman, let alone in her voice Washington Post It is the triumph of this novel that Doyle - entirely without condescension - shows the inner life of this battered housewife to be the same stuff as that of the heroes of the great novels of Europe Mary Gordon, New York Times Book Review In feeling the pulse of a raw Dublin suburb, Doyle is recording a beat that can be recognised all over the world The Times Impassioned, dignified and richly humane Independent ‘Roddy Doyle's unsparing examination of a brutal marriage transcends the boundaries of class and nationhood’ The Times Read moreĮven more mesmerizing than his prize-winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha Daily Mail As the past floats by and mingles with the present Paula Spencer finds herself coming alive, in all her vulnerability and her strength. Everything was better then, not least the music, the soundtrack to her romance with Charlo. Paula’s started drinking more and dreaming more, taking herself back to her contented childhood and audacious teenage years. Paula Spencer is thirty-nine, the mother of four and learning to live without Charlo, her violent, abusive husband. From the Booker Prize winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments comes the story of Paula Spencer: an ordinary woman whose extraordinary character will stay with you long after reading.įrom the Booker Prize winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments: the story of an ordinary woman whose extraordinary character will stay with you long after reading.

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle