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"Mein Name ist Paula Spencer. Ich bin 39 Jahre alt. Letzte Woche hatte ich Geburtstag. Ich bin Witwe. Ich war 18 Jahre lang verheiratet... Mein Mann starb letztes Jahr, vor genau einem Jahr. Er wurde von der Polizei erschossen." Paula erzählt von ihrem armseligen Dasein in den Vorstädten Dublins, von ihrer Liebe zu Carlo, dem prügelnden Ehemann, zu ihren Kindern und zum Alkohol. Aber sie besitzt Humor und einen enormen Lebenswillen, und die kleinen Siege des Alltags sind es, die sie nicht verzweifeln lassen.

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From the Booker Prize winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments comes the story of Paula Spencer: an ordinary woman whose extraordinary character will stay with you long after reading.

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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

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"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 Europe" Mary Gordon New York Times Book Review

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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.

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