The Woman Who Walked into Doors [Poster]

Roddy Doyle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 1997

A novel from the author of THE COMMITMENTS and PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA, which tells the story of Paula Spencer, a working-class, alcoholic, battered woman in her thirties.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Roddy Doyle follows Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, winner of the Booker Prize, and The Commitments with another remarkable book that readers will find funny, sexy, and sad. He takes an unflinching look at the life of Paula Spencer as she struggles to regain her dignity after marriage to an abusive husband and a worsening drinking problem. Capturing both her vulnerability and her strength, Doyle gives Paula a voice that is real and unforgettable. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Doyle's novel about a battered, working-class woman, PW wrote in a starred review, displays "a perception that is rare [and] a compassion that is scorching..
- a compassion that is scorching."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Poster
• Publisher: Minerva (May 5, 1997)
• ISBN-10: 0749356375
• ISBN-13: 978-0749356378
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,401,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roddy Doyle is the author of eight novels, a collection of stories, and Rory & Ita, a memoir of his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. He lives and works in Dublin.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable achievement, August 12, 2002

By 

Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woman Who Walked into Doors (Mass Market Paperback)

Writing a story from the point of view of a battered woman is a bit like getting a head start in a race. Before you've even begun you've virtually got the entire audience already on your side, united and standing by this poor abused female. To do a mediocre job about a subject like this isn't terribly difficult purely based on the amount of emotional baggage that the reader is going to bring to the book. But to produce a story in such a fantastic and astonishing way as is done here is breathtaking. Roddy Doyle doesn't take the easy way out of anything. The story is shockingly real and the characters are vividly brought to life. The detail and the feelings are so intense that if one didn't know better, one would swear that this is genuinely the autobiographical story of a woman coming to the end of what she can take. There were passages in here that I was physically uncomfortable reading, purely from the power of the writing and the intensity of the raw emotion.

The focus of Doyle's story is a fairly unremarkable housewife in contemporary Dublin who has the unexciting name of Paula Spencer. On the surface, Paula's not a terribly interesting person. She lives in an ordinary neighborhood, has a nostalgic regard for her childhood, and does the same normal things that thousands of other women her age do. You probably know her, or someone quite like her. As we learn more about Paula, as the layers get pulled back, we begin to see that there is more going on in her life than we initially suspected. And, yet, nothing that we learn, by itself, is especially shocking given the world that we live in today. Alcoholism, spousal abuse, and violence are unfortunately a part of life, so it's not the inclusion of those elements that lifts this book out of the ordinary. Where the book succeeds is in painting a shockingly realistic portrayal of a relatively unassuming wife who has gotten herself trapped in a violent and abusive relationship.

We begin the book by seeing her the way she is seen by the people in her life who don't want to know what her real problems are. But the author doesn't let us stay on the surface for long. As we delve deeper and deeper into this woman's mind, the things we learn become more and more unsettling. Nothing is brought out merely for shock value, and nothing is brought out just for show. The reactions and attitudes of the woman are utterly and painfully real, while the actions themselves are explored in a deep and unsettling manner. They way that Paula tries to cope with her situation is disturbingly realistic, allowing Doyle to really get to the heart of matters. Paula's mindset is held up to the light for the audience to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. The book is a powerful character study.

What keeps people in abusive and destructive relationships is something that is oftentimes a complete mystery to outsiders. THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO DOORS tells this story from deep in the point of view of the victim. The title of this book is, of course, a euphamism. It's what Paula and thousands of women like her say to their friends to cover their black-eyes and bloodied, broken noses. But it's telling in another way; Paula walks into the door, rather than through it, being unable escape the cycle of violence. This book won't preach at you, but it may help you to understand exactly what is going through the head of a woman who keeps getting hit, but never seems to leave. It's not a non-stop downer though, as Paula's narrative voice can be quite amusing at places. However, it's her story that you'll remember long after reading this book, not the (admittedly funny) asides that she often makes.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "He gave me a choice--right or left. I chose left, and he broke the little finger on my left hand.", April 29, 2007

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woman Who Walked into Doors (Mass Market Paperback)

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 than 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. n Mary Whipple

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, September 9, 1999

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woman Who Walked into Doors (Mass Market Paperback)

I'd seen the movies made from Doyle's earlier books (The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van), but hadn't read any until this. Despite the somewhat depressing tale it's great writing. The book is the recounting by a 39-year old Irish woman of her family and social life growing up, interspersed with her life now, a year after the death of her abusive husband. Told first-person, as if she is sitting at a kitchen table with the reader, the stories of her life are engrossing and entertaining. Although the actual battering doesn't come until the last third of the book, it lurks in the background of everything leading up to it. And when it does come, it dominates and is terrible in its harshness. It's a pretty impressive story, especially coming from the pen of a man.