The Woman Who Walked into Doors: A Novel (A Paula Spencer Novel)

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

Once again Roddy Doyle writes about the working-class of Dublin, Ireland. The narrator is Paula Spencer -- née O'Leary. THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO DOORS is the story of her life. At the time of her narration it is 1995 and she is thirty-nine. She is a widow; she has three children living with her and a fourth who has disappeared (she fears he now is a heroin addict); she works cleaning houses in the morning and a downtown office in the evening; she is an alcoholic; but somehow she is managing to keep the pared-down household afloat. The key to her survival, it emerges, is her grit and her indomitable personality.

Paula had a rather dull childhood, made worse by being pigeonholed in secondary school as one of the dumb ones. She had been the first of her group to develop tits, and in school she had to spend inordinate energy preventing the boys, as well as the male teachers, from feeling her up. Her passport to glamour and excitement came when she saw Charlo Spencer at a dance: "He was with a gang but all by himself. His hands in his pockets with the thumbs hooked over the denim and a [butt] hanging from his mouth. It got me then and it gets me now: cigarettes are sexy -- they're worth the stench and the cancer. * * * I was sweating a bit. And I felt the sweat when I saw Charlo. This wasn't a crush -- this wasn't David Cassidy or David Essex over there -- it was sex. I wanted to go over there and bite him."

After a two-year courtship they married. Up to that point, life with Charlo was, for Paula, given her background, the fairy-tale life of a princess. But soon after marriage she became pregnant and one night, well into her pregnancy when she felt "ugly, fat and full of someone else's hairy body", Charlo hit her -- punched her square in the face. For the next seventeen years he continued to beat and batter her. "Broken nose. Loose teeth. Cracked ribs. Broken finger. Black eyes. I don't know how many; I once had two at the same time, one fading, the other new. Shoulders, elbows, knees, wrists. Stitches in my mouth. Stitches on my chin. A ruptured eardrum. Burns. * * * He dragged me around the house by my clothes and by my hair. He kicked me up and he kicked me down the stairs." When she needed medical attention, as was frequently the case, Charlo took her to the hospital and stayed with her while she was treated, the ever-solicitous husband. What happened? She had fallen down the stairs. Or she had walked into a door. Yet again.

Paula's harrowing story of those seventeen years of abuse is relegated to the last quarter of the novel. The first three quarters set the stage. Despite the many bleak aspects of her life, they are a joy to read because Paula is so irrepressible, constantly surprising and delighting you with her humor or her wisdom. That first part of the novel also contains the story of how Paula came to be a widow. To find out about that, and about how a year earlier she finally ousted Charlo from the house, you will have to read the novel. It will be an unforgettable experience.

I read that Roddy Doyle was J K Rowling's favorite author. His fiction was too real and depressing. Plus it was hard to follow as he jumped from the past to present day often.

Mr. Roddy Doyle is a brilliant writer, however his work, "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors", is exceptional even for him. The majority of this work is written as a monologue recounting a 17 year marriage, however the voice is that of a woman, and for Mr. Doyle it demonstrates yet again how incredibly talented a writer he is.
You will find this work funny if you find sociopaths amusing. You will find it sexy if violence and rape are entertaining. There is a difference between dark humor and, "the smile of a Nazi". If a joke or two resides in a book it does not qualify as a comedy, and if there is a memory or two of young love that can be called fond, it does not qualify as sexy. If a child is holding an ice cream cone and the contents fall to the ground, the look on the child's face can be called sad. When the question of, "left or right", is not a choice of streets rather the side that sadistic cruelty is inflicted upon the person who is asked, to be judged sad is to read the judgment of an imbecile.
This book is as good as anything this writer has offered to readers, and is by far the darkest work of his I have read. To state this is a book about an abusive relationship is to qualify for making an understatement of epic magnitude. This book is as brutal to read, as the savagery committed within it is an everyday occurrence around the world. Even when a type of justice of finality is visited upon the sadist in this book it is for yet other actions of his.
I really thought I was beyond being upset by anything I would read. Mindless violence while a daily event is hardly surprising. Behavior that manages to disturb due to a writer's ability to truly deliver the pain, insanity, and premeditated cruelty is as important as the crimes committed are repulsive. That which Mr. Doyle writes about is common, that he is able to present what we have become numb to in a manner that is profoundly disturbing is extraordinary.

Paula Spencer is a battered wife, and The Woman Who Walked Into Doors the story of how that came to be. Paula's history unfolds against a backdrop of a her thuggish husband's last crime -- the kidnapping of a banker's wife which goes horribly awry. To cope with a marriage that quickly turns violent, Paula crawls into the bottle, and as her alcoholism deepens, her family grows, and the addition of recklessly endangered children compromises the reader's sympathy for Paula's plight. Still, she is funny and strong, as are many of the other characters, and the reward for sharing her burden is learning of her survival.

I had heard about how great this book was, but I just could not get into it. I was very disappointed. I found it disjointed and vulgar.

I would recommend this book to a friend. It is not a happy story, but the main character is immensely likable, and her story is interesting and worth reading. I liked Paula Spencer. She's funny, insightful, vulnerable and charming. She is also flawed, which makes her seem very real to me. It was hard to read this book though, because the shadow of her tragedy creeps across every page. Doyle waits until the final chapters to tell us, though, about Paula's battering at the hands of a man she loves, her "shattered" husband, Charlo. The title tells us what we do and do not want to know, so I think it's fine that Doyle waits until the end to reveal it all.

This book is written in the first person, and as an American the Irish vernacular was initially difficult for me, but Paula's inner dialogue is well written, and very enjoyable. I think I might have picked up a few Irish colloquialisms.

Kudos to Roddy Doyle! He has created a wonderful, likable, character in Paula Spencer.

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.

Paula O'Leary, the narrator of this story, is an abused wife. But it wasn't always that way. She has fond memories of meeting and marrying Charlo Spencer, the man of her dreams. However, she also has memories of him beating her until he exhausted himself, raping her, waking her up with a boot to the stomach.
Paula lived with this man, trapped by her poverty, her lack of self worth, her despair and fear. She feels that Charlo is the only man or person who sees her when she feels invisible. She becomes an alcohlic.
It's only when Charlo stares at his daughter with hate filled eyes that Paula realises that she must stop him. She has to break the cycle in order to protect her children as best as she can.
Roddy Doyle has written a painful and graphically real story with an amazing lead character. I really felt for her when Charlo would escort her to the hospital after a beating and she would silently plead with the doctors or nurses to ask how the injury happened. Instead all they saw was a drunk who kept falling down stairs and walking into doors.