---
product_id: 3775675
title: "The Woman Who Walked into Doors: A Novel (A Paula Spencer Novel)"
brand: "roddy doyle"
price: "₨655"
currency: SCR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 11
url: https://www.desertcart.sc/products/3775675-the-woman-who-walked-into-doors-a-novel-a-paula
store_origin: SC
region: Seychelles
---

# The Woman Who Walked into Doors: A Novel (A Paula Spencer Novel)

**Brand:** roddy doyle
**Price:** ₨655
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Woman Who Walked into Doors: A Novel (A Paula Spencer Novel) by roddy doyle
- **How much does it cost?** ₨655 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sc](https://www.desertcart.sc/products/3775675-the-woman-who-walked-into-doors-a-novel-a-paula)

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- roddy doyle enthusiasts

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## Description

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## Images

![The Woman Who Walked into Doors: A Novel (A Paula Spencer Novel) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/512mG-eW0JL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A brilliant novel with an unforgettable narrator
  

*by R***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 17, 2014*

Once again Roddy Doyle writes about the working-class of Dublin, Ireland.  The narrator is Paula Spencer  -- née O'Leary.  THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO DOORS is the story of her life.  At the time of her narration it is 1995 and she is thirty-nine.  She is a widow; she has three children living with her and a fourth who has disappeared (she fears he now is a heroin addict); she works cleaning houses in the morning and a downtown office in the evening; she is an alcoholic; but somehow she is managing to keep the pared-down household afloat.  The key to her survival, it emerges, is her grit and her indomitable personality.Paula had a rather dull childhood, made worse by being pigeonholed in secondary school as one of the dumb ones.  She had been the first of her group to develop tits, and in school she had to spend inordinate energy preventing the boys, as well as the male teachers, from feeling her up.  Her passport to glamour and excitement came when she saw Charlo Spencer at a dance:  "He was with a gang but all by himself.  His hands in his pockets with the thumbs hooked over the denim and a [butt] hanging from his mouth.  It got me then and it gets me now:  cigarettes are sexy -- they're worth the stench and the cancer. * * * I was sweating a bit.  And I felt the sweat when I saw Charlo.  This wasn't a crush -- this wasn't David Cassidy or David Essex over there -- it was sex.  I wanted to go over there and bite him."After a two-year courtship they married.  Up to that point, life with Charlo was, for Paula, given her background, the fairy-tale life of a princess.  But soon after marriage she became pregnant and one night, well into her pregnancy when she felt "ugly, fat and full of someone else's hairy body", Charlo hit her -- punched her square in the face.  For the next seventeen years he continued to beat and batter her.  "Broken nose.  Loose teeth.  Cracked ribs.  Broken finger.  Black eyes.  I don't know how many; I once had two at the same time, one fading, the other new.  Shoulders, elbows, knees, wrists.  Stitches in my mouth.  Stitches on my chin.  A ruptured eardrum.  Burns.  * * * He dragged me around the house by my clothes and by my hair.  He kicked me up and he kicked me down the stairs."  When she needed medical attention, as was frequently the case, Charlo took her to the hospital and stayed with her while she was treated, the ever-solicitous husband.  What happened?  She had fallen down the stairs.  Or she had walked into a door.  Yet again.Paula's harrowing story of those seventeen years of abuse is relegated to the last quarter of the novel.  The first three quarters set the stage.  Despite the many bleak aspects of her life, they are a joy to read because Paula is so irrepressible, constantly surprising and delighting you with her humor or her wisdom.  That first part of the novel also contains the story of how Paula came to be a widow.  To find out about that, and about how a year earlier she finally ousted Charlo from the house, you will have to read the novel.  It will be an unforgettable experience.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Sad story, lovely main character
  

*by P***A on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 22, 2007*

I would recommend this book to a friend. It is not a happy story, but the main character is immensely likable, and her story is interesting and worth reading. I liked Paula Spencer. She's funny, insightful, vulnerable and charming. She is also flawed, which makes her seem very real to me. It was hard to read this book though, because the shadow of her tragedy creeps across every page. Doyle waits until the final chapters to tell us, though, about Paula's battering at the hands of a man she loves, her "shattered" husband, Charlo. The title tells us what we do and do not want to know, so I think it's fine that Doyle waits until the end to reveal it all.This book is written in the first person, and as an American the Irish vernacular was initially difficult for me, but Paula's inner dialogue is well written, and very enjoyable. I think I might have picked up a few Irish colloquialisms.Kudos to Roddy Doyle! He has created a wonderful, likable, character in Paula Spencer.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Paula Spencer got damn sick and tired of "walking into doors."
  

*by R***E on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 23, 2017*

I taught British Literature for twenty years and believe the modern Irish writers are producing the best prose in English today.  Roddy Doyle won the Man Booker Prize for Paddy Clark, Ha Ha Ha.  His Barrytown Triology deserves to be read for sheer enjoyment.  The Woman Who Walked Into Doors broached a touchy subject: spousal abuse.  With alcohol abuse being fairly common and divorce not accepted (or even legal until relatively recently), this problem was not often discussed.  Irish readers were a bit shocked, even angry,when Doyle wrote about Paula Spencer, who would say she had walked into a door when she had to go to the clinic after being beaten, or thrown down the stairs, by Charlo,her abusive husband.  Paula outlives Charlo (the way he dies is hilarious and the reaction of Paula and her sisters is even funnier).  Her story continues in Doyle's following novel, called Paula Spencer.  She is one of Doyle's most finely crafted characters.

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*Product available on Desertcart Seychelles*
*Store origin: SC*
*Last updated: 2026-03-20*