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Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle
Paula Spencer, the alcoholic wife and mother from Roddy Doyle's first novel, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, is now 48 and given up alcohol, although she misses it terribly. Her husband is dead and she struggles to reconnect with her four children and eke out some sort of life in the new Ireland. John Paul, a recovering heroin addict, and Nicola both have families, Leanne may follow her mother's path to alcoholism, and Jack is the youngest and her favorite. Paula faces her new life with the knowledge that some bonds may never be unbroken. Paula Spencer has received positive reviews with The Independent saying, "Paula is a triumphantly original character, and her gently anarchic sense of humour, her ruthless honesty and the bursting sense of fun that permeates the book scotch any hint of sentimentalism. Doyle, meanwhile, constructs his set-pieces and orders the narrative with a craft so unobtrusively elegant and clever that it demands a second reading. This is a splendid piece of work."
