Product Description

Ten years on from The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Roddy Doyle returns to one of his greatest characters, Paula Spencer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49058 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'Raw and honest, strong and fragile, Paula remains Roddy Doyle's
most realistic and heart-warming creation'

Sunday Herald
'Paula is as much there to observe modern Ireland as she is to
provide her own tale with some closure ...a remarkably benevolent portrait
of the country.'

Sunday Telegraph
'Strangely hypnotic...emerges poignancy and a kind of heroism.'

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
Having first encountered Paula Spencer in 'The Woman who Walked into Doors', I was eagerly looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with her in this book. However, I was disappointed by the novel. It was good to witness (on her terms) her struggle to establish a new alcohol-free foundation for her life and to read of attempts to repair or accept past mistakes. I was also interested in Paula's ambivalence about her daughter, Nicola, and her sister, Carmel: these felt like 'real' complex relationships. Too often, though, characters were under-developed and used as cyphers for Paula's struggles. This may be the nature of this 'inner world' type of writing in which the reader enters into a character's interpreted world with all its complexities, delusions, non-sequiturs, pettiness, as well as struggles, spirit and courage. However, it needs more creative handling than Doyle offers in this book.

Gloomy, though convincing
Roddy Doyle introduced the character of Paula Spencer in his earlier, much acclaimed, novel 'The Woman Who Walked Into Doors'. Reading that novel isn't necessarily a pre-requisite of reading this - I read it many years ago and couldn't really remember the plot - but there are some spoilers in this novel for its predecessor.

This story picks up years after the last left off. Paula's children are now nearly all adults, and she herself is making an effort to turn her life around. It's written in Doyle's usual, direct style, paying careful attention to the smallest and most mundane aspects of life. At times this can be fascinating, at others annoying.

Paula is a complex, well drawn character and one that you can't help but sympathise with. There's also plenty of humour and there's a definite vein of hope running through the story, probably more so than in many of Doyle's other works. Nothing terribly dramatic happens, it's not the sort of story you could film easily, but that's to it's credit and adds to the believability.

There were things I found irritating about the story at times, mostly due to Doyle's style of writing which alternating pleased and annoyed me. There is a tendenancy to jump around in time - sometimes between paragraphs in some sections - which I found very annoying. It's also a rather 'grey' story - I found the whole thing vaguely depressing and grim, even despite it's theme being more one of hope. Despite the flashes of humour, it is quite gloomy and unmemorable. But it is a convincing and well written, if not wholly enjoyable, read.

Fabulous
Is there any more stars available? I truly loved this book. I enjoyed 'The Woman Who Walked Into Doors' so much it was nice to pick back up with the character of Paula Spencer. If you haven't read the prequal I think it will help but would say it isn't a must. Well actually, it would make a lot more sense if you did.

The plot wasn't as good as the first one but still deserving of more than 5 stars. The kids are all grown up now and it was interesting to see the effect on them of Paula's life when they younger. The dialogue could have been a little better, I'm more of a fan of speech marks than I am of dashes; but that's personal preferences I suppose.

Well thought out, well written and well worth a read.