The Woman Behind The Door by Roddy Doyle:

I lost touch with Roddy Doyle’s books after The Guts ten years ago.  I have to say this is a massive return to form, or maybe all the books I have missed in the last decade have been up to this standard.  Either way, Doyle has returned to Paula Spencer - the protagonist of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors and the eponymous sequel.  

In this book, Paula is in her late sixties. She has a great group of friends, a dull (but dependable and decent) man in her life and a bunch of children - some of whom are distant, one (Nicola) considers herself damaged by Paula’s marriage.  Against the backdrop of COVID, cost of living and  modern day Dublin; things come to a head.  

It’s a powerful cocktail and those who love Doyle’s dialogue driven style can see it here.  He’s always in control of using events in a bigger story about coming to terms with your own child, let alone your past.  And although readers may be familiar with what happened to Paula in the previous two novels, it stands alone as a funny, brutal, warm, touching read.  

In this book, Paula reads Marian Keyes’ novel The Break.  Perhaps he’s impishly nodding at a universe where both novelist and novel are fictional and real at the same time.  Either way, this puts Doyle alongside Keyes and Enright at the top table of Irish literature. 

It’s published by Random House on 12th September and I thank them for a preview copy.  #thewomenbehindthedoor