I thought the plotline with Carmel making accusations of sexual abuse against their father would go somewhere, but it never did. I liked the themes of family and memory portrayed through Paula and her sister Carmel’s contradictory recollections of their childhood, it reminded me of my dad’s family. Sometimes I questioned why Paula continued to feel about him the way she did, Roddy Doyle did a good job of portraying Paula’s complex feelings toward him but it still strained credulity somewhat at times. Roddy Doyle has a gift for astonishingly fluid stream-of-consciousness prose and acute psychological observations, I cared about the main character even though her behavior and life choices drove me absolutely crazy.Ĭharlo is one of the most thoroughly monstrous characters I’ve had the misfortune of encountering in literature in a long time, but he remains chillingly believable throughout, he was a completely loathsome man. Paula Spencer is a complex and engaging literary creation, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors made me think about women who continue to stay in abusive situations and how easy it is to judge them, especially when there are children involved. I liked this novel even more than I liked the previous book I read by Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Several years later Charlo murders an elderly woman during a botched robbery and is shot by the police, and Paula examines her memories of him and her deeply irrational lingering feelings for the man who brutalized her. She still loves him, she makes that much clear, despite what he did to her and her four kids. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is a beautifully written novel about a horrific subject, it tells the story of Paula Spencer, a middle-aged alcoholic housecleaner and beaten wife who finally finds the strength to escape her sadistic husband, Charlo.

I have to admit I have a weakness for stream-of-consciousness, unreliable narrators, and dialect, and this novel combines all three of these to stunning effect.

The woman who walked into doors review