Great read 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 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?". 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 !!! 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 "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.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
