Paula Spencer

Continuing the story of Paula Spencer, the main character in his 1997 novel, The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle focuses on a survivor of horrific spousal abuse, a woman who has been on her own now for twelve years, and whose husband Charlo has been dead for eleven of those years. For this entire period, however, Paula has been lost in a fog of alcohol, and her eldest daughter Nicola has been the "mother" of the family and Paula's own caretaker. As the novel opens, Paula has been sober for four months, and as we watch the unfolding of her life for most of the ensuing year, we see every detail of her struggle to become responsible for the family and regain their trust. All the family has problems. Nicola, now married, was forced to be "mother" of the family while still a child herself; her brother John Paul, became addicted to heroin at age fourteen and ran away; Leanne, now twenty-two, lives at home, an alcoholic; and Jack, nearly sixteen, is closed off from his mother. The novel, almost plotless, is an intense study of Paula's growth as she goes through the business of living an "ordinary" life--cleaning houses by day and offices by night, fretting about money and her need for a new coat, doing the family wash and making soup, visiting her senile mother, saving for a computer for Jack, and, most importantly, staying off alcohol. As Doyle takes us step by painful step through Paula's mundane reality, we see her slowly growing and taking control for the first time since her marriage. As she gains confidence, she works to reconnect with her sisters, form new relationships, and, clumsily, to become a real mother. Doyle's style perfectly suits Paula's first-person narrative--short staccato sentences which reflect her nervous attention to simple actions, a style which concentrates on Paula's reactions to what is happening around her, rather than on description. Her internal monologue and her conversations with her children and sisters reveal her past history and her present hopes and dreams. Abrupt and sometimes terse, Doyle's narrative style reflects Paula's gradual progress and her small victories, the prosaic details told in the simple style of a woman who sees her life as a series of small steps. The limited scope of Paula's life and her everyday problems open up to reveal universal themes and truths, the age-old yearning to become independent, to accept responsibility, and to achieve personal respect. A memorable, carefully drawn study of the human spirit as it renews itself. n Mary Whipple

My God, but this is a gorgeous book. Doyle is completely inside the mind and soul of this woman. Yes, Paula Spencer had a awful life with an abusive husband and her own alcoholism. But what Doyle does so gloriously is show this woman coming to life, being reborn and seeing the world anew as the fog of her addiction lifts day by day, wisp by wisp. What's revealed is an intelligent, discerning woman with a streak of humor that saves her (and the reader) time and again. Part of her re-birth is connecting with ther four children, learning what it means to be a Mom. The pages where she's urging Jack, her wary 16 year old, to take some homemade soup is as beautiful as any fiction I've read in years.

Roddy Doyle is probably my favorite contemporary author. Time and again, he's been able to capture the essence of Irish life. "The Woman who Walked into Doors," this novel's prequel, presented a battered Paula Spencer living in the Celtic Tiger period of the 90s. I am an American who lived in Ireland during the time "Paula Spencer" takes place, and I can't tell you how amazingly-well Doyle captures Ireland at this moment in time. Eastern Europeans are entering the country in droves, everybody's text-messaging, and it's a completely different Ireland from the one ten years ago. I even remember the little boy he talks about who went missing in Cork. That story was all over the news when I was there. Backdrop aside, Doyle continues to be a master of character development. I feel as if I know Paula Spencer intimately, and I constantly have to remind myself this novel was written by a man. In short, Roddy Doyle is a genius!

I am so sorry I've finished this book already and long for the sequel: Can Paula make it with a birdwatcher? Every little detail was perfect and the story about ACOAs is pathetic but brave. No one else has described so well the feelings of the recovering alcoholic (as a mother) or anyone who has escaped an abusive relationship (as a mother). The guilt, the sudden feelings of great happiness over nothing more than a ray of sunshine but..."selection boxes" what are they? And White Sripes? there are other inscrutable itemes as well that you have to be Irish to know what the heck they are.

The amazing thing about Roddy Doyle's style of writing rests on his simple yet descriptive way of capturing people, their lives and their emotions. In the subtleness of his writing--he interlaces real human emotions with humor and lucid descriptions. This is another amazing book--much lighter than his previous ones, but still like his others in the fullness and richness of his characters' every day existence.