Customer Reviews

The Woman Who Walked into Doors

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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.

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

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.

THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO DOORS by Roddy Doyle is a book I had a hard time putting down because it pulled me intensively into the story .Doyle writes about an alcoholic woman whose husband abuses her constantly. Not only the story itself, but also the style and the composition of his book are extremely violent. Doyle for instance uses the language of the social area he describes. Some readers might be shocked by the rough, colloquial language his characters use, but they have to keep in mind that it helps to authenticate the setting. His frequent use of dialogue gives the reader a sense of being present in the environment describes. Also, there is no chronological development in the story. The book starts with the end of the actual story and ends in the middle of it. Past and present keep intermingling through the use of flashbacks. The way the story is told reminded me of how our own memory works: events and feelings are randomly thrown together, but to find out how something really happened you must sort everything out. To me, Doyle's highest achievement is the perspective from which the story is told. Doyle, as a man, tried to put himself into a woman's body and soul. I think he succeeded extremely well. Rarely did I, as a female reader, find stereotypical allusions of which I believe some men might be convinced. As can be seen in his earlier books(cf PADDY CLARK HA HA HA or THE SNAPPER), Doyle seems to have a real gift for slipping into characters that have nothing in common with himself. Readers who like to reflect on society will be all the more pleasedthat Doyle's central issue continues to be Irish working class. Some British readers might have seen his TV series FAMILY on BBC that was controversial, because it dealt with family taboos such as abuse, alcoholism, and poverty. Have fun with some real good literature!

How do you write a novel about wife-battering without making the batterer a monster? How do you write one while making sure the reader cannot blame the victim for staying? Well, perhaps the first is impossible, but the second surely isn't, and this book is proof.

Doyle takes us inside the head of Paula, who has found out that her deadbeat husband is now dead. There are hints that she might have had to something to do with his demise, but it's not clearly drawn out until we have learned how horrible he has made this woman's life. Why doesn't she leave, some may ask? Well, she's poor, not well-educated, and has grown up in a family and neighborhood where abuse stays behind closed doors. However, her struggles first to survive her husband, and then to survive the memories are moving and poignant.

Doyle also lets us the effects of abuse on the children, who have witnessed it, and how the whole family can act in accordance to keep the unsavory behavior of one of their own a secret. While Paula considers herself weak and just muddling through, the reader will likely come to the opposite conclusion.
Rather than go on Oprah and confess her problems, she keeps her struggles to herself (and the reader) and in doing so, comes across as incredibly brave, a heroine in every sense.

I read it in a day. The theme is old, sometimes overdone, yet I found myself unable to part from Paula Spencer. The narrative style of Roddy Doyle tells this story in a circular and timeless fashion. The story doesn't begin, the story doesn't end. It happens every where and all the time, yet Paula feels that she is the only person to suffer her fate. She feels that she deserves it, that she has provoked it. She grasps at any sense of healing she can find. Yet she barely notices it in front of her own face, inside her family. Doyle's story telling techniques didn't let me down. He remarkably captures an extremely colloquial working class. He uses vocabulary to suit the less educated, the "thicks". He explains things perfectly as some one in Paula's position would. Doyle's couragous use of repetition was outstanding! He constantly re-uses scenes and slowly builds to an expanisive understanding of Paula's life. We being to realize things alongside Paula. And we understand that if one remembers the good-they must also remember the bad. Comparably-to remember the bad, we also take with us the good. With out hitting readers (or the main character) over the head, Doyle has explained to us why some people allow such terrible things to happen to themselves. He tells us, and he tells us again. He is teaching us to see. He wants us to "ask" those people, and offer them the help they want. He shows us that when all else fails--we have our family.

I borrowed this book from my sister-in-law while visiting family in Ireland. I'd never read Roddy Doyle before, but I certainly will again. The book is terribly dark, and you find yourself feeling this doomed woman's every breath. This is not a book for readers who only like happy stories. This is, however, a painfully realistic view of poverty, alcoholism and violence. What I found most interesting was the way in which the narrator would repeat her thoughts over and over again, word for word. I liked that because it seemed so human...especially after a lifetime of being broken down. She would remember things as though it were for the first time, mainly because they are as vivid and painful still. I really connected with her, and any book that can do that is amazing. I strongly recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind the dark side of literature.

I read part of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors maybe 18 months ago in the New Yorker. At the time all I thought was "Yeehaa! A new Roddy Doyle!" It's safe to say that I would read his shopping list and probably be enthralled. I thought it was an enormously well-written book in that the writing and writer were indetectable and all there was was Paula and her story. It's heartbreaking to read about this bright happy girl who one day discovers that she's "thick" after being put in the dumb-kid class at school. And from then on her life, and those of her friends, schoolmates and sisters revolve around men. The way men treat them, the way they are either a "slut" or a "tight bitch". The way they only become someone or make a name for themselves in relation to men. The worst part though is how much she did love Charlo before he began to beat her. It would have been more bearable if she'd just married the first thick that knocked her up. But that this man that she loved, and that genuinely loved her would destroy her like that was horrible. This book really affected me. I felt almost as though I'd lived it through it all myself. Very moving, very sad.

I write book review part-time, and have done so for the past six years. This is simply the best, and certainly the most important, novel I've reviewed in all that time. Mr. Doyle's skill in expressing the mental and physical suffering of a battered wife will take your breath away. If you have not yet read this unforgettable novel, put it in your shopping cart right now. You can thank me later. What you'll get is a literary experience that will remain with you for years to come.

Paula Spencer in Roddy Doyle's "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors" spends much of the book telling the story of her life, initiated by the death of her estranged husband. There is a profoundness to her sadness recalling the courtship she had with Charlo and the life they lived as a couple and as parents. She slowly realizes why her life came about as it has (single, alcoholic, poor), why Charlo's life ended the way it did. Paula spent her life making excuses for why Charlo did the things he did, always letting herself be convinced that Charlo truly loved her despite the horrible beating he inflicted on the the mother of his children. Not until she is able to stand up and take matters into her own hands does her life begin to straighten out.

Doyle's writing is sinply magnificent. Writing from the perspective of this alcoholic high-school dropout, he keeps her words as would be expected from someone of her educational background. The way he is able to write from a woman's perspective is remarkable. Paula's struggle with her alcoholism seems very real and probably all too familiar to those who have decided they can quit drinking any time they want.

While this book is not one to read if you expect to have a bit of light reading, it is time well spent.