PAULA SPENCER

"Roddy Doyle returns to Paula Spencer with the tale of her fight for a better future." Paula is now forty-seven years old. Her husband is long dead, and it's been four months and five days since she's had a drink. Two of her children are out of the house - John Paul, a recovering heroin addict, and Nicola, a successful sales rep - but twenty-two-year-old Leanne, who herself has a problem with alcohol, and sixteen-year-old Jack are still at home. Paula continues to work as a house and office cleaner and to live from paycheck to paycheck; she's feeling pretty washed up and hopeless. But as she manages to get through each day sober, she begins to piece her life back together and to resurrect her family. She's even met a man at the bottle return; he's nice, there's something steady about him. Told with the unmistakable wit of Doyle's extraordinary voice, this is a redemptive tale about a brave and tenacious woman.

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of seven acclaimed novels and Rory & Ita, a memoir about his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.