Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of eleven acclaimed novels including
The Commitments,
The Snapper,
The Van and
Smile, two collections of short stories, and
Rory & Ita, a memoir about his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
From the Booker Prize winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments: the story of an ordinary woman whose extraordinary character will stay with you long after reading.
‘He loved me and he beat me. I loved him and I took it. It’s as simple as that’
Paula Spencer is thirty-nine, the mother of four and learning to live without Charlo, her violent, abusive husband.
Paula’s started drinking more and dreaming more, taking herself back to her contented childhood and audacious teenage years. Everything was better then, not least the music, the soundtrack to her romance with Charlo. As the past floats by and mingles with the present Paula Spencer finds herself coming alive, in all her vulnerability and her strength.
‘Roddy Doyle's unsparing examination of a brutal marriage transcends the boundaries of class and nationhood’ The Times
It is the triumph of this novel that Doyle - entirely without condescension - shows the inner life of this battered housewife to be the same stuff as that of the heroes of the great novels of EuropeIn feeling the pulse of a raw Dublin suburb, Doyle is recording a beat that can be recognised all over the worldThis new novel is Roddy Doyle's best to date. I cannot recall any writer who has better captured the vulnerability and courage of a woman trapped in a loveless marriageEven more mesmerizing than his prize-winning
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha HaImpassioned, dignified and richly humaneHis best work yetCompulsively readable
