The Women Behind the Door - by Roddy Doyle

About the Book

"A powerful, moving mother-daughter story filled with struggle and redemption by Booker-Prize winning author Roddy Doyle. At sixty-six, Paula Spencer-mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor-has finally started to live her life. She has a job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, her boyfriend Joe is a text away when she needs him, and her four children now have the healthy families and petty dramas that Paula could have only hoped for. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside. That is until her eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep one day. Nicola is everything Paula wasn't-independent, affluent, a loving wife and mother, a "success"-but now she is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. She has left her family and come to stay. As Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, mother and daughter must untangle past memory, trauma, and revelations to confront what they mean to each other-and who they want to be. A timely and powerful novel of regrets, reparations, and reconciliations, The Women Behind the Door is a delicately devastating portrait of shame and the inescapable shadow it casts over families. Many readers will welcome the chance to reconnect with this strong, singular character whom we have seen in The Woman Who Walked into Doors and Paula Spencer, but all readers will be glad to have Paula in their life now"--

Book Synopsis

"A showdown between mother and daughter that is about as emotionally painful as it gets." --Fiona Maazel, The New York Times

A powerful, moving mother-daughter story filled with struggle and redemption by Booker-Prize winning author Roddy Doyle

At sixty-six, Paula Spencer--mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor--has finally started to live her life. She has a job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, her boyfriend Joe is a text away when she needs him, and her four children now have the healthy families and petty dramas that Paula could have only hoped for. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside.

That is until her eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep one day. Nicola is everything Paula wasn't--independent, affluent, a loving wife and mother, a "success"--but now she is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. She has left her family and come to stay. As Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, mother and daughter must untangle past memory, trauma, and revelations to confront what they mean to each other--and who they want to be.

A timely and powerful novel of regrets, reparations, and reconciliations, The Women Behind the Door is a delicately devastating portrait of shame and the inescapable shadow it casts over families. Many readers will welcome the chance to reconnect with this strong, singular character whom we have seen in The Woman Who Walked into Doors and Paula Spencer, but all readers will be glad to have Paula in their life now.

Review Quotes

A most-anticipated book of Fall 2024 from LitHub PEOPLE Los Angeles Review

"The women in Roddy Doyle's The Women Behind the Door are so flawed. . .[a]nd they are such wonderful company: so funny, so direct, so emotional, so surprising." --The Washington Post

"A showdown between mother and daughter that is about as emotionally painful as it gets. . . unflinching and dark, brutal in its economy, wry and mostly devastating." --Fiona Maazel, The New York Times

"[The Women Behind the Door is a] miracle of a novel. . .with Paula, Doyle has created a fictional character as memorable as Molly Bloom or the Wife of Bath." --Associated Press

"Possibly Doyle's most mature, and certainly his most structurally sophisticated [novel]." --The Times

"An interestingly spiky portrait of late-life maternal ambivalence. . . .a wild and hilarious narrative voice. . . .The book deals with hard times and dark matters, but there's always light in the writing." --The Guardian

"Doyle has been described as 'the undisputed laureate of ordinary lives' and nowhere is that illustrated more in his work than with Paula Spencer." --The Irish Times

"A novel of hauntings. . .There is lightness here, too--lightness and humor. . .Doyle is superb at channeling Paula's interior voice: witty, cranky, desperately honest. The dialogue is spot-on." --Laurie Hertzel, The Star Tribune

"Readers familiar with Doyle's past novels won't be surprised by the cheerfully profane dialogue and zippy vernacular on every page of this emotionally resonant work." --Shelf Awareness

"A riveting, indelible portrait." --PEOPLE

"In Doyle's crisp, wry language, the story of that pain is just the story of life, along with all its small moments of levity and unexpected connection." --The Washington Post

"An emotionally raw mother-daughter drama. . . Doyle's compassionate chronicle of recovery and reconciliation is worth seeking out." --Publishers Weekly

"[Doyle] excels in the singing speech of ordinary people that reveal the seething emotions underneath. . . .A gripping, blisteringly honest examination of issues too long swept under the rug." --Kirkus

"Doyle's writing about women is always sensitive and insightful but it is his inquiry into the human mind and heart which is most compelling of all." --The Gloss

"[Doyle] is at his best documenting the daily lives of regular people, and that's exactly what he's done here." --The Irish News

"[Doyle] brings his storytelling genius to a tale about a family crisis." --iNews

"I've been reading Roddy Doyle's since The Commitments, and I can't imagine ever stopping. He is a brilliant, one-of-a-kind writer--passionate, funny and humane." --David Nicholls, author of One Day

"With The Woman Who Walked Into Doors Roddy Doyle understood what we call 'coercive control' before society gave it a name. You might think that achievement enough, but he also gave us the wounded, yearning, beautiful heart of Paula Spencer. The character is a hymn to female generosity; the ordinary, discardable kind that keeps the world turning. Reading her voice for the first time sent a pang of recognition through me, followed by love." --Anne Enright, author of Booker Prize-winner The Gathering

About the Author

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of eleven acclaimed novels, including The Commitments, The Van (a finalist for the Booker Prize), Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (winner of the Booker Prize), The Woman Who Walked into Doors, A Star Called Henry, Smile, and, most recently, Love. Doyle has also written several collections of stories, as well as Two Pints, Two More Pints, Two for the Road, and several works for children and young adults, including the Rover novels. He lives in Dublin.