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More About This Book

Overview

Ten years after the bestselling The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Roddy Doyle resurrects one of his greatest characters

When Roddy Doyle published The Woman Who Walked into Doors in 1996, critics and readers alike hailed it as a tour de force of literary ventriloquism that captured both the vulnerability and strength of a thirty-nine-year-old Dublin housewife with a fondness for drink. Now, Doyle triumphantly returns to Paula Spencer with the moving tale of her fight for a better future.

Paula is now almost forty-eight years old. Her abusive husband Charlo is long dead, and it's been four months and five days since she's had a drink. Her youngest children, Jack and Leanne, are still living with her, but she worries about Leanne. Paula continues to work as a cleaner, and the fridge is often half empty. But for the first time in her life she is going to parent-teacher meetings, and she's bought a CD player for the kitchen, where she surprises her sisters with her taste for U2 and The White Stripes. Readers will root for Paula as she slowly begins to put her life back together. She's even met a man at the bottle return; he's nice, there's something steady about him. Told with the unmistakable wit of his extraordinary voice, this is a redemptive tale that will have Doyle fans cheering.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
Paula Spencer, "the woman who walked into doors" in Roddy Doyle's 1996 bestseller, returns in another gripping stand-alone novel. Paula is now a widow (her abusive husband was killed by the Irish police) and has somehow managed to string together four months of sobriety. Concerns about abstinence occupy some of her thoughts, but what troubles her most are her fears that her children are irreparably damaged by their dysfunctional upbringing. What sounds like a dismal reading prospect is redeemed by Doyle's vivid portrayals of the multigenerational characters. A serious literary read.
James Hynes
… reading Paula Spencer is pure, undiluted pleasure, and it's not necessary to have read the first novel to thoroughly enjoy this one. Paula is still a very funny woman (and her sharp-tongued sister Carmel is even funnier), and Doyle himself is still the master of the extended set-piece. There's a lunch scene with Paula and her two sisters that goes on for 20 pages, and I read it twice, just because it was such fun and so beautifully crafted.
— The Washington Post
More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
From The Critics
In other books (notably The Snapper), Roddy Doyle has sometimes cut his heroines more slack, without depriving them of the authenticity of misfortune. It’s a tragic fact that abused, alcoholic women exist in abundance, and telling their stories in unsparing detail, as Doyle does, is both important and noble.
— The New York Times

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780143112730
  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
  • Publication date: 12/18/2007
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 288
  • Sales rank: 683,469
  • Product dimensions: 5.32 (w) x 7.80 (h) x 0.54 (d)

Meet the Author

Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of 6 acclaimed novels, and Rory and Ita, a memoir of his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.


From the Hardcover edition.

Read an Excerpt

She copes. A lot of the time. Most of the time. She copes. And sometimes she doesn’t. Cope. At all.

This is one of the bad days.

She could feel it coming. From the minute she woke up. One of those days. It hasn’t let her down.

She’ll be forty-eight in a few weeks. She doesn’t care about that. Not really.

It’s more than four months since she had a drink. Four months and five days. One of those months was February. That’s why she started measuring the time in months. She could jump three days. But it’s a leap year; she had to give one back. Four months, five days. A third of a year. Half a pregnancy, nearly.

A long time.

The drink is only one thing.

She’s on her way home from work. She’s walking from the station. There’s no energy in her. Nothing in her legs. Just pain. Ache. The thing the drink gets down to.

But the drink is only part of it. She’s coped well with the drink. She wants a drink. She doesn’t want a drink. She doesn’t want a drink. She fights it. She wins. She’s proud of that. She’s pleased. She’ll keep going. She knows she will.

But sometimes she wakes up, knowing the one thing. She’s alone.

She still has Jack. Paula wakes him every morning. He’s a great sleeper. It’s a long time now since he was up before her. She’s proud of that too. She sits on his bed. She ruffles his hair. Ruffles — that’s the word. A head made for ruffling. Jack will break hearts.

And she still has Leanne. Mad Leanne. Mad, funny. Mad, good. Mad, brainy. Mad, lovely — and frightening.

They’re not small any more, not kids. Leanne is twenty-two. Jack is nearly sixteen. Leanne has boyfriends. Paula hasn’t met any of them. Jack, she doesn’t know about. He tells her nothing. He’s been taller than her since he was twelve. She checks his clothes for girl-smells but all she can smell is Jack.
He’s still her baby.

It’s not a long walk from the station. It just feels that way tonight. God, she’s tired. She’s been tired all day. Tired and dark.

This place has changed.

She’s not interested tonight. She just wants to get home. The ache is in her ankles. The ground is hard. Every footstep cracks her.

Paula Spencer. That’s who she is.

She wants a drink.

The house is empty.

She can feel it before she shuts the door behind her.

Bad.

She needs the company. She needs distraction. They’ve left the lights on, and the telly. But she knows. She can feel it. The door is louder. Her bag drops like a brick. There’s no one in.

Get used to it, she tells herself.

She’s finished. That’s how it often feels. She never looked forward to it. The freedom. The time. She doesn’t want it.

She isn’t hungry. She never really is.

She stands in front of the telly. Her coat is half off. It’s one of those house programmes. She usually likes them. But not tonight. A couple looking around their new kitchen. They’re delighted, opening all the presses.

Fuck them.

She turns away. But stops. Their fridge, on the telly. It’s the same as Paula’s. Mrs Happy opens it. And closes it. Smiling. Paula had hers before them. A present from Nicola. The fridge. And the telly. Both presents.

Nicola is her eldest.

Paula goes into the kitchen. The fridge is there.

–You were on the telly, she says.

She feels stupid. Talking to the fridge. She hated that film, Shirley Valentine, when Shirley talked to the wall. Hello, wall. She fuckin’ hated it. It got better, the film, but that bit killed it for her. At her worst, her lowest, Paula never spoke to a wall or anything else that wasn’t human. And now she’s talking to the fridge. Sober, hard-working, reliable — she’s all these things these days, and she’s talking to the fridge.

It’s a good fridge, though. It takes up half the kitchen. It’s one of those big silver, two-door jobs. Ridiculous. Twenty years too late. She opens it the way film stars open the curtains. Daylight! Ta-dah! Empty. What was Nicola thinking of? The stupid bitch. How to make a poor woman feel poorer. Buy her a big fridge. Fill that, loser. The stupid bitch. What was she thinking?

But that’s not fair. She knows it’s not. Nicola meant well; she always does. All the presents. She’s showing off a bit. But that’s fine with Paula. She’s proud to have a daughter who can fling a bit of money around. The pride takes care of the humiliation, every time. Kills it stone dead.

She’s not hungry. But she’d like something to eat. Something nice. It shocked her, a while back — not long ago. She was in Carmel, her sister’s house. Chatting, just the pair of them that afternoon. Denise, her other sister, was away somewhere, doing something — she can’t remember. And Carmel took one of those Tesco prawn things out of her own big fridge and put it between them on the table. Paula took up a prawn and put it into her mouth — and tasted it.

–Lovely, she said.

–Yeah, said Carmel. –They’re great.

Paula hadn’t explained it to her. The fact that she was tasting, really tasting something for the first time in — she didn’t know how long. Years. She’d liked it. The feeling. And she’d liked the prawns. And other things she’s eaten since. Tayto, cheese and onion. Coffee. Some tomatoes. Chicken skin. Smarties.She’s tasted them all.

But the fridge is fuckin’ empty. She picks up the milk carton. She weighs it. Enough for the morning. She checks the date. It’s grand; two days to go.

There’s a carrot at the bottom of the fridge. She bends down — she likes raw carrots. Another new taste. But this one is old, and soft. She should bring it to the bin. She lets it drop back into the fridge. There’s a jar of mayonnaise in there as well. Half empty. A bit yellow. Left over from last summer. There’s a bit of red cheese, and a tub of Dairygold.

There’s a packet of waffles in the freezer. There’s two left in the packet — Jack’s breakfast. There’s something else in the back of the freezer, covered in ice, hidden. Stuck there. The package is red — she can see that much. But she doesn’t know what it is. She’d have to hack at it with a knife or something. She couldn’t be bothered. Anyway, if it was worth eating it wouldn’t be there.

From the Hardcover edition.

Foreward

1. a) ‘She copes. A lot of the time. Most of the time. She copes. And sometimes she doesn’t. Cope. At all.’ (p.1). Paula is a survivor. Do think the fact that sometimes she is ok and other times she isn’t makes her a more believable survivor than someone who is shown to be completely strong? Where else in the novel does her need to survive shine through?
b) Reviewing The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Mary Gordon wrote: 'It is the triumph of this novel that Mr Doyle - entirely without condescension - shows the inner life of this battered house-cleaner to be the same stuff as that of the heroes of the great novels of Europe.'
Do you think that Paula is a heroine for our times?

2. The book is set in the ‘New Dublin’ where there are a lot of new emigrants are becoming part of the community. How well does Roddy Doyle portray this new world? What do you think of Paula’s reaction to the changes around her?

3. ‘Her mother’s an addict too. John Paul told her that, one of the first times they met. It’s a hard thing to imagine, a granny who’s a heroin addict. But John Paul got there before Paula; it was hard to imagine a granny who’s an alcoholic. He wasn’t being vicious. She even smiled.’ (p.117)

4. How do the roles of Paula’s life – grandmother, mother, widow, alcoholic, cleaner – conflict with one another? Is she able to fulfill any of these in the book?
a) Do you think that Paula’s own addiction has lead to her children’s addiction to heroin and alcohol?

b) Why are some of the children affected by the past and the othersaren’t?

5. Paula is proud to be able to purchase a computer for Jack. Why does consumerism equal achievement for Paula? Is it a way to show that she is getting away from the poverty – emotionally and monetary – of the past?

6. In an interview about The Woman who Walked into Doors Roddy Doyle said ‘everyone has a soundtrack to their lives.’ How important is the music in Paula Spencer?

7. How does the style of the narrative affect the way you read the book? Do you feel that you are in Paula’s head?

8. ‘[Paula]’s on Temple Street when she hears and feels the mobile. A text. She opens it. 1 tit. Hpy Brthdy. She laughs. She won’t delete that one. She can’t wait to see Carmel now.’ (p.277)
In this moment when Paula’s sister is recovering from her mastectomy there is humor. Throughout the book there are moments of sadness which are laced with laughter. How do you think this works in the book? Do you think this a realistic portrayal of life?

Reading Group Guide

In this new novel, set in contemporary Dublin, Roddy Doyle returns to Paula Spencer (“One of Doyle’s finest creations” – Toronto Star), the beloved heroine of the bestselling The Woman Who Walked into Doors, with spectacular results.

Paula Spencer begins on the eve of Paula’s forty-eighth birthday. She hasn’t had a drink for four months and five days. Having outlived an abusive husband and father, Paula and her four children are now struggling to live their adult lives, with two of the kids balancing their own addictions. Knowing how close she always is to the edge, Paula rebuilds her life slowly, taking pride in the things she accomplishes, helped sometimes by the lists she makes to plan for the future.

As she goes about her daily routine working as a cleaning woman, and cooking for her two children at home, she re-establishes connections with her two sisters, her mother and grandchildren, expanding her world. She discovers the latest music, the Internet and text-messaging, treats herself to Italian coffees, and gradually ventures beyond her house, where she’s always felt most comfortable. As Paula thinks of herself, “She’s a new-old woman, learning how to live.”

Doyle has movingly depicted a woman, both strong and fragile, who is fighting back and finally equipped to be a mother to her children – but now that they’re mostly grown up, is it too late? Doyle’s fans and new readers alike will root for Paula to stay clean and find a little healing for herself and her children, amidst the threat that it may all go wrong.


From the Hardcover edition.|

1. a) ‘She copes. A lot of the time. Most of the time. She copes. And sometimes she doesn’t. Cope. At all.’ (p.1). Paula is a survivor. Do think the fact that sometimes she is ok and other times she isn’t makes her a more believable survivor than someone who is shown to be completely strong? Where else in the novel does her need to survive shine through?
b) Reviewing The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Mary Gordon wrote: 'It is the triumph of this novel that Mr Doyle - entirely without condescension - shows the inner life of this battered house-cleaner to be the same stuff as that of the heroes of the great novels of Europe.'
Do you think that Paula is a heroine for our times?

2. The book is set in the ‘New Dublin’ where there are a lot of new emigrants are becoming part of the community. How well does Roddy Doyle portray this new world? What do you think of Paula’s reaction to the changes around her?

3. ‘Her mother’s an addict too. John Paul told her that, one of the first times they met. It’s a hard thing to imagine, a granny who’s a heroin addict. But John Paul got there before Paula; it was hard to imagine a granny who’s an alcoholic. He wasn’t being vicious. She even smiled.’ (p.117)

4. How do the roles of Paula’s life – grandmother, mother, widow, alcoholic, cleaner – conflict with one another? Is she able to fulfill any of these in the book?
a) Do you think that Paula’s own addiction has lead to her children’s addiction to heroin and alcohol?

b) Why are some of the children affected by the past and the others aren’t?

5. Paula is proud to be able to purchase a computer for Jack. Why does consumerism equal achievement for Paula? Is it a way to show that she is getting away from the poverty – emotionally and monetary – of the past?

6. In an interview about The Woman who Walked into Doors Roddy Doyle said ‘everyone has a soundtrack to their lives.’ How important is the music in Paula Spencer?

7. How does the style of the narrative affect the way you read the book? Do you feel that you are in Paula’s head?

8. ‘[Paula]’s on Temple Street when she hears and feels the mobile. A text. She opens it. 1 tit. Hpy Brthdy. She laughs. She won’t delete that one. She can’t wait to see Carmel now.’ (p.277)
In this moment when Paula’s sister is recovering from her mastectomy there is humor. Throughout the book there are moments of sadness which are laced with laughter. How do you think this works in the book? Do you think this a realistic portrayal of life?

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