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Paula Spencer
by Roddy Doyle
The author revives his protagonist from "The Woman Who Walked into Doors" for a new novel that finds the Dublin housewife a decade older and trying to get her life in order after achieving sobriety.
Viking, 288 pages
12/28/2006
$24.95
ISBN: 0670038164
Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
Doyle treats Paula and her pain with a tenderness that transforms what might be a bleak story of a working-class Dublin woman into a tale of triumph and great humor.
New York Observer Robert Christgau
British reviewers recognize that Paula Spencer is something special. Now let's hope Americans notice. [8 Jan 2007, p.18]
Washington Post James Hynes
Reading Paula Spencer is pure, undiluted pleasure.
The Onion A.V. Club Noel Murray
Is there a contemporary writer more attuned to the way people talk and worry in the 21st century? Probably not.
The Independent Tim Martin
Doyle…orders the narrative with a craft so unobtrusively elegant and clever that it demands a second reading.
Library Journal Starr E. Smith
The description of Paula's first visit to a new neighborhood Italian cafe is worth the purchase price itself. [15 Nov 2006, p.55]
The New Yorker
Doyle’s depiction of a seething home life is penetrating, and Paula, as she patches a self together from remnants, emerges as an inspiring heroine without a hint of smarminess.
The Spectator Honor Clerk
This is not a book to pick up casually...but if you do, then it is one that you won't put down. [30 Sep 2006]
Daily Telegraph Claudia FitzHerbert
If this all sounds extraordinarily grim, that's because it is, but there is an intense pleasure in the reading of this book, akin to meeting someone whose every word is a striving towards truth while striving not to collapse beneath the weight of it.
USA Today Donna Freydkin
[A] beautifully nuanced and sweetly populist sequel.
The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Anakana Schofield
The working classes have served him well; so has his CD collection.
The New York Times Book Review Liesl Schillinger
Telling [her story] in unsparing detail, as Doyle does, is both important and noble.
Christian Science Monitor Yvonne Zipp
[It has] less of a dramatic arc than the one that enlivened "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors," [but] the stakes in the sequel - redemption and forgiveness - are every bit as high.
Publishers Weekly
These aren't elements that automatically make for a have-to-read novel, but in this wholly and vividly imagined case, they do. [16 Oct 2006]
The Observer Euan Ferguson
A phenomenally rewarding read, with observational humour on a microscopically careful scale.
Booklist Benjamin Segedin
The third-person narration will make some readers miss Paula's voice. [15 Oct 2006, p.5]
Houston Chronicle Robert Cremins
Though the narrative might meander a tad much, this deeply empathetic novel comes to a suitably indeterminate ending.
Kirkus Reviews
Profound, subtle and unsentimental--the latest from a master back in top form. [1 Nov 2006, p.1091]
The Guardian Anne Devlin
[Doyle writes] with simplicity in a language that never betrays the complexity of human nature.
The Independent Lisa Gee
Doyle's dialogue is pithy, his mordant comedy direct and delicious.
Los Angeles Times Michael Harris
We might think being careful would be thin material for fiction, but Doyle, who won the 1993 Booker Prize for "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha," has the skill and, above all, the patience to pull it off.
Bookslut Shaun Manning
Doyle handles the rather weighty premise and emotionally complex situations with delicate skill and a good deal of humour.
San Francisco Chronicle Heller McAlpin
Doyle…is the Edgar Bergen of prose. Seriously, the man has a beagle's keen ears and a musician's sense of rhythm. His pacing is extraordinary.
Wall Street Journal Niall Stanage
Despite the story's grim outlines, there is humor in surprising quantities.
Boston Globe Gail Caldwell
The labyrinths of Paula's inner narrative, so meticulously rendered in her first story, here feel abbreviated and grimly laconic--a shorthand that seems more of an authorial failing than a character revelation.
Sydney Morning Herald Robert Bevan
At times, Doyle appears to lard on [Paula’s] travails to the point of parody...His attempts to bring us up to date with features of contemporary Ireland...almost feel like heavy-handed product placement.
Daily Telegraph John Preston
Roddy Doyle plunges into this maelstrom of gloom with exhaustive gusto...It's like listening to someone hogging the floor at an AA meeting.
 The average user rating for this book is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
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