Featured Reading Guide
Roddy Doyle
When we first met Paula Spencer in The Woman Who Walked into Doors she was thirty-nine, recently widowed, an alcoholic struggling to hold her family together. Paula Spencer begins on the eve of Paula s forty-eighth birthday. She hasn t had a drink for four months and five days. Her youngest children, Jack and Leanne, are still living with her. They re grand kids, but she worries about Leanne. Paula still works as a cleaner, but all the others doing the job now seem to come from Eastern Europe, and the checkout girls in the supermarket are Nigerian. You can get a cappuccino in the café…
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Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of five previous novels, The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Woman Who Walked into Doors. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
topAbout the Book
When we first met Paula Spencer in The Woman Who Walked into Doors she was thirty-nine, recently widowed, an alcoholic struggling to hold her family together. Paula Spencer begins on the eve of Paula s forty-eighth birthday. She hasn t had a drink for four months and five days. Her youngest children, Jack and Leanne, are still living with her. They re grand kids, but she worries about Leanne. Paula still works as a cleaner, but all the others doing the job now seem to come from Eastern Europe, and the checkout girls in the supermarket are Nigerian. You can get a cappuccino in the café, and her sister Carmel is thinking of buying a holiday home in Bulgaria. Paula s got four grandchildren now; two of them are called Marcus and Sapphire. Reviewing The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Mary Gordon wrote: It is the triumph of this novel that Mr Doyle entirely without condescension shows the inner life of this battered house-cleaner to be the same stuff as that of the heroes of the great novels of Europe. Her words hold true for this new novel. Paula Spencer is brave, tenacious and very funny. The novel that bears her name is another triumph for Roddy Doyle.
topRoddy Doyle interview/review
Audio interviews from BBC four with Roddy Doyle:
Roddy rarely does interviews. Here is an extract from a 1999 interview from Literary Review , which picks up on how Roddy created Paula Spencer in The Woman Who Walked into Doors :
- How did you come to write The Woman Who Walked into Doors?
When I was writing the last episode [of “Family,” the wife’s episode], I felt that she had a lot more to say, and that given the conditions, she was well capable of sitting down and writing her novel, a book, you know. She is an alcoholic and has been through a very bad and a violent marriage, and she’s using the novel in many ways to sort herself out. It’s obviously difficult for a man, who’s not an alcoholic, to write such a novel.
I wanted a challenge. I wrote Paddy Clarke initially just to see if I could do something different. I thought: At least I used to be a ten-year-old boy. But I’ve never been a forty-year-old woman, nor will I ever be. I’ve never been the victim, or even the witness, of domestic violence, and I felt I would have a bash at it, as an exercise.
Also, I have enjoyed writing in the first person – deciding the limits of the [character’s] interest and vocabulary. This woman, Paula Spencer, is not going to go out there and get a university degree and go off and become a legal aid lawyer. What she is, actually, is a cleaner. She cleans offices and homes of middle-class people. That’s what she does and what she’s going to do for the rest of her life. It’s a state of mind. What she does in the book is she’s looking back as far back as she can go. She’s trying to separate what actually happened from what she thinks might have happened. She’s trying to get her sister’s memories to tally with hers.
- Do your characters, especially I’d say Paula Spencer, do they ever take over the story? Did she take this story in directions that you might not have intended?
Yeah, well I never plan the novels in the first place, so the stories will always go in places that I’ve never intended, because my intentions at the very beginning are always extremely vague, you know? While I like to bring the characters to life, it’s the end results, if you like – the finished book – that should be brought to life. That the reader should think that these people are real. Now, when I’m writing, I’m choosing words. It’s never been the case where a character would get out of control because I am actually creating the character. [Laughs]
So, books and stories have gone in ways that I hadn’t anticipated, but then I’d have to say that I didn’t really have … I don’t plan the books, so any direction can be a surprise. There were a couple of times where I did get upset, when I was writing….I try to get close to the [character’s] experience, using snippets of my own experience, for example. We’re roughly the same age – when I was describing her childhood and her teen years. We both have children that helped. I have a very limited experience of physical pain. But I tried to use my memory of it to try and get into her consistent experience of physical pain. But at the same time, I’m not interested in occupying the character.
Choosing the right word, when you’re bearing in mind that people are going to read it eventually, can be quite a manipulative exercise. It might be a strong word to use, but you’re manipulating the reader. You’re drawing the reader into the story, and you want the reader to be emotionally involved. You’re actually being quite mechanical about it all. I’d often end up writing mundane details that other people recognize. And even though they might have a higher standard of living, and even though their geographical location might be very, very different, they might recognize in Paula’s working day the rhythm of their own working day, and it brings them closer. Find the complete article at here.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- a) ‘She copes. A lot of the time. Most of the time. She copes. And sometimes she doesn’t. Cope. At all.’ (p.1). Paula is a survivor. Do think the fact that sometimes she is ok and other times she isn’t makes her a more believable survivor than someone who is shown to be completely strong? Where else in the novel does her need to survive shine through? b) Reviewing The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Mary Gordon wrote: ‘It is the triumph of this novel that Mr Doyle – entirely without condescension – shows the inner life of this battered house-cleaner to be the same stuff as that of the heroes of the great novels of Europe.’ Do you think that Paula is a heroine for our times?
- The book is set in the ‘New Dublin’ where there are a lot of new emigrants are becoming part of the community. How well does Roddy Doyle portray this new world? What do you think of Paula’s reaction to the changes around her?
- ‘Her mother’s an addict too. John Paul told her that, one of the first times they met. It’s a hard thing to imagine, a granny who’s a heroin addict. But John Paul got there before Paula; it was hard to imagine a granny who’s an alcoholic. He wasn’t being vicious. She even smiled.’ (p.117) How do the roles of Paula’s life – grandmother, mother, widow, alcoholic, cleaner – conflict with one another? Is she able to fulfill any of these in the book?
- a) Do you think that Paula’s own addiction has lead to her children’s addiction to heroin and alcohol? b) Why are some of the children affected by the past and the others aren’t?
- Paula is proud to be able to purchase a computer for Jack. Why does consumerism equal achievement for Paula? Is it a way to show that she is getting away from the poverty – emotionally and monetary – of the past?
- In an interview about The Woman who Walked into Doors Roddy Doyle said ‘everyone has a soundtrack to their lives.’ How important is the music in Paula Spencer?
- How does the style of the narrative affect the way you read the book? Do you feel that you are in Paula’s head?
- ‘[Paula]’s on Temple Street when she hears and feels the mobile. A text. She opens it. 1 tit. Hpy Brthdy. She laughs. She won’t delete that one. She can’t wait to see Carmel now.’ (p.277) In this moment when Paula’s sister is recovering from her mastectomy there is humor. Throughout the book there are moments of sadness which are laced with laughter. How do you think this works in the book? Do you think this a realistic portrayal of life?
Other Books by Roddy Doyle
A Star Called Henry
Born in the slums of Dublin in 1901, his father a one-legged whore-house bo…
Barrytown Trilogy
Oh, Play That Thing
It’s 1924, and New York is the centre of the universe. Henry Smart, on the run…
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
Roddy Doyle’s Booker Prize-winning novel describes the world of ten-year-old…
Suggested Further Reading
- I’ll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward (Vintage, 2004) – read the guide
- Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (Flamingo, 1996)
- The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe (Picador, 1992)
- Things my Mother Never Told Me by Blake Morrison (Vintage, 2002)
- Paradise by A L Kennedy (Vintage, 2004) – read the guide
Additional Online Resources
Reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/books/authors/doyleroddy/paulaspencer
USA reading guide for The Woman who Walked into Doors including an interview with Roddy Doyle: http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/woman_who_walked.html
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