Paula Spencer

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.