The Women Behind the Door

Booker-Prize winner Roddy Doyle¿s spectacular return to his iconic character, Paula Spencer, whom he originated in the groundbreaking The Woman Who Walked into Doors and its follow-up, Paula Spencer

''The undisputed laureate of ordinary lives''
SUNDAY TIMES

''The best novelist of his generation''
NICK HORNBY, author of High Fidelity

At sixty-six, Paula Spencer ¿ mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor ¿ is finally living her life. A job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, a man ¿ Joe ¿ with whom she shares what she wants, friends who see her for who she is, and four grown children, now with families and petty dramas the likes of which Paula could only have hoped for. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside.

That is until Paula¿s eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep. Independent, affluent, a loving wife and mother, ¿a success¿ ¿ Nicola is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. Over the