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Paula Spencer | 
 enlarge | Author: Roddy Doyle
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $7.28
You Save: $17.67 (71%)
New (12) Used (9) from $4.66
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 250780
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 6.3 x 1.1
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
ASIN: B000S1KZUQ
Publication Date: December 28, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Pure, undiluted pleasure (The Washington Post) from Booker Prizewinning author Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle s beautifully wrought tale revisits the Dublin housewife-heroine of his earlier acclaimed novel, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. Paula is now forty-seven, her abusive husband is long dead, and its been four months and five days since shes had a drink. She cleans offices to get by and lives from paycheck to paycheck. But as she manages to get through each day sober, she begins to piece her life back together and to resurrect her family. Told with the unmistakable wit of Doyles unique voice, this is a redemptive tale about a brave and tenacious woman.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
Great read September 15, 2008
I'm surprised to be recommending a book about an alcoholic middle aged mum so enthusiastically, but if you read Paula Spencer and don't love it, there's a good chance you're an idiot.
I didn't pick this up for a couple of weeks after I bought it - I wasn't ready for what I thought might be a dark read, but I needn't have worried. I'm sorry to have finished it.
Sweet, Simple, Sad, Amazing August 14, 2008
Not much happens in this book, but that doesn't seem to matter. We're stuck in Paula's head for the length of this novel--an amazing place to be stuck. The smallest movement forward feels huge for Paula and just as huge for the reader. The book is deeply compassionate, tender, sad and unforgettable.
Yet Paula never asks,"What did I do to deserve all this?". November 21, 2007
A couple of other reviewers have told what story there is to this novel,so I won't try to enlarge on it.
Really,there is not much story at all.What we see; is what life is like to a woman who has not have an easy time of it ;and that is an under statement.
Paula,is now 48,and she has lived what should have been the best years of her life,and we are taken right into her heart and soul for a year or so.
It is not pretty,but Paula is not defeated by remorse or even worrying about why her lot is what it is. All she wants to do is "get along" and even the least amount of joy she is able to have,she is thankful for. Though she is never envious of others,and she has every reason to be, she takes each day as it comes.Will tomorrow be better? Who knows,Paula now lives her life, entwined with her few close friends and disfunctional family,one day at a time.Despite it all,she hasn't an enemy in the world.She doesn't even carry a bit of hatred in her heart for her now dead abusive ex-husband.
No doubt,Doyle shows what a life some people lead.Of course,many women's lot in life is worse than Paula's and many's lot is better.But this is Paula's .There is always hope,and without that ,what is there to live for?
Please release "Family- Charlo, Paula, Nicola, John Paul on DVD !!! October 12, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been waiting for YEARS for the BBC series based on these books "Family : Paula, Charlo, Nicola, John Paul" to be released on DVD, please, please, release this series in the United States so we can have this... the books from Roddy Doyle on Paula Spencer have been fantastic, I highly recommend them.....
for those of you who have not seen this series based on the book, demand it be released on DVD....
almost as good as the first June 2, 2007
"Paula Spencer," published about a decade later than its prequel, "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors," is a quieter, but just as moving, story. The reader, who was introduced to Paula as a working class Irishwoman struggling with alcoholism and an abusive husband, now finds her recovering from alcoholism but still coping with family problems, after her husband passed away. She has a job cleaning houses, which has its perks, she winds up seeing the White Stripes in concert. The book's scenes center around her attempts to reconcile with her four children, two of whom are addicts, and relationship with her sisters, who are dealing with trials of their own.
This book is less dramatic (no murders or first person descriptions of abuse) but equally black humored and engaging. Recommended.
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