Product Description

Gritty and moving, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors has been widely described as Roddy Doyle's best work to date.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50308 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Synopsis
'My name is Paula Spencer. I am thirty-nine years old. It was my birthday last week. I was married for eighteen years. My husband died last year. He was shot by the Guards. He left me a year before that. I threw him out. His name was Charles Spencer; everyone called him Charlo.' "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors" is one of Roddy Doyle's finest achievement to date, the heart-rending story of a woman struggling to reclaim her dignity after a violent, abusive marriage and a worsening drink problem. Paula Spencer recalls her contented childhood, the audacity she learned as a teenager, the exhilaration of her romance with Charlo, and the marriage to him that left her powerless. Capturing both her vulnerability and her strength, Doyle gives Paula a voice that is real and unforgettable. Lean, sexy, funny and poignant, "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors" shows, yet again, that Roddy Doyle has an unparalleled gift for transforming ordinary life into great literature.

About the Author
Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. His first novel, The Commitments, was published to great acclaim in 1987 and was made into a very successful film by Alan Parker. The Snapper was published in 1990 and has also been made into a film, directed by Stephen Frears. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, which won the Booker Prize in 1993, was the largest-selling winner in the history of the prize and has been published in nineteen languages. His latest novel is the sequel to The Woman Whob Walked Into Doors, Paula Spencer.

Customer Reviews

Very Powerful.
I have not read any other Roddy Doyle. I tried to read Paddy Clarke Ha Ha but couldn't. But this book stayed with me in a way that not many do. I have never before read a book written by a man where he writes as a woman character in the first person... and what is so profoundly good about this is that I completely forgot that the book was written by a man, that I really felt that I was getting inside the character and she was so real. I became so involved that I had such a strong emotional reaction to the events and the characters. I have read a lot, but I would always put this on my list of top ten books I have ever read. I found it hard afterwards to read something else because I started several and they all seemed so petty and shallow in comparison.

The dark side of Barrytown.
The Barrytown trilogy and `Paddy Clark, Ha, Ha, Ha' were the greatest feel good comedies to come out of Ireland and `The Van' and `Paddy Clark, Ha, Ha, Ha' were respectively and justifiably nominated for and awarded the Booker Prize. So the question was where next? Roddy didn't leave Barrytown for his next project but showed us it's seedier underbelly in the dark and harrowing TV show `Family'. This introduced us to the Spencer family with its domestic violence and abuse. Each episode focussed on a member of the family, Charlo, John-Paul, Leanne and Paula `The Woman Who Walked into Doors.'

Although grim `Family' didn't quite prepare us for `The Woman Who Walked into Doors' which was quite a departure for Roddy. As with `Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha' the book is written in the first person and again the form was a complete success with Paula's voice being totally convincing. That Paddy Clarke, a ten year old boy, could be brought to life by a middle aged man was a testament to Roddy Doyle's talent but that he could give voice to an alcoholic working class woman in an abusive relationship is quite unbelievable. Literature is littered with talented male writers who's writing of women parts is two dimensional and unconvincing, so to tackle this is the first person and with such emotive subject matter was a huge risk. Fortunately it succeeded and the book is a triumph as indeed in Paula's part in the battle of life.

The story works well within the form switching from childhood, adolescence and different stages of the marriage to allow the reader to piece the story together but still not prepare them for the ending of the book. I was so impressed with this form that when I decided on the subject matter of my own novel I used it as the template to tell a very different story.

When I first read `The Woman Who Walked into Doors' I didn't know how Roddy Doyle could follow `Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha', I certainly had no idea it would be possible to better it.

"He gave me a choice--right or left. I chose left, and he broke the little finger on my left hand."
Written in 1996, this "prequel" to 2007's Paula Spencer, tells of Paula's life from her teen years to her passionate relationship with Charlo Spencer. Part of a family of robbers, Charlo is an exciting man who makes her feel alive and gives her a sense of selfhood. Booker Prize-winner Doyle crafts a dramatic first-person narrative told by Paula, who leaves her rigid home and unsympathetic father to marry Charlo, a man her father disapproves of. Their passionate relationship and remarkable sense of communication vanish when Paula becomes pregnant with the first of their four children. Gradually, Paula finds solace in alcohol, as Charlo becomes an absentee husband and father and eventually a philandering wife-abuser.

Paula begins her story in the present, with Charlo's death--shot by the police after he has murdered a woman during a robbery--then develops the story through her reminiscences about both the good and the bad times. As she relives her courtship and early marriage and explores her early past and her more recent past,, she also tells us about her present battle with alcohol. She regrets that Nicola, her teenage daughter is responsible for the family on many occasions, since Paula works nights cleaning offices and then returns home wanting only to tell Jack a bedtime story and then abandon herself to drink.

As the story of her abuse evolves, the reader is privy to Paula's innermost conflicts. Though she knows that "I lost all my friends--and most of my teeth," she also bemoans the fact that "he beat me brainless and I felt guilty." The tendency of abuse victims to blame themselves, especially when their love has been as great as that of Paula and Charlo, explains Paula's comment that "for seventeen years I was brainwashed and brain dead." She knows that she has made her children suffer, not only because of her abuse but because of her alcoholism, but she has been powerless to change until in one violent moment, she sends Charlo out of the house and determines to live her life on her own.

Doyle's ability to structure a novel such as this one, which moves from immediate present into recent and then distant past, providing important information about character in the process, brings this dramatic novel to life. His trademark humor is subdued here in favor of the ironies of Paula's life. This is a far more serious novel that the Barrytown Trilogy--more in keeping with the Booker Prize-winning Paddy Clark, Ha, Ha, Ha, an equally sad story of a deteriorating marriage from the point of view of a ten-year-old boy. This poignant novel is ultimately a celebration of the human spirit as Paula determines to take control of her life and to provide a family for her children. Mary Whipple