The Woman Who Walked Into Walls
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
Irish novelist Roddy Doyle writes very well about family life. His previous novels, which include The Van, The Snapper and The Commitments, are insightful, funny peeks into the personal lives of families who argue a lot, but also love each other. A recent work, The Woman Who Walked Into Walls, is his best yet, but it may not be for all tastes. This book, told in first-person narrative, is a profoundly depressing story about wife beating, and the ripping apart of one woman's self esteem by her sadistic, abusive husband. The scars don't completely heal, even after the monster has left the home.
Paula Spencer is in her late 30s. Her husband Charlo, who she threw out of the house a year earlier, has just been killed by the police after kidnapping and killing a woman in her home. Doyle paints us a picture of Paula's current life. She's raising three kids, the youngest five, the oldest, a young woman named Nicola. Paula has a menial job cleaning homes and offices and is also an alcoholic, but doesn't drink until after the youngest is in bed. Although we know Paula was abused by her husband, that is not the main focus early on. At times the tone of the novel is almost light. Paula directs her household with a good-natured gung-ho attitude in the mornings. She argues with her sisters, especially Carmen, about their own family's past.
Doyle offers readers two separate stories for more than half of the novel. One chapter deals with Paula's post-marriage life and trying to deal with Charlo's death. The next chapter recounts Paula's life as a teen and her eventual meeting with, courtship and marriage with Charlo, a good looking hood who had a prison record and a good job. He was a �ride,� in Paula's words, a man that every girl wanted, and he chose her for his wife.
Charlo first hits Paula when she's pregnant with Nicola. Then he hits her again, and again, and again, and again, and then some more. In one very long extremely difficult-to-read chapter, we are provided a glimpse of the personal 17 years of hell that Paula experiences as a battered wife. As brutal as the abuse is -- it includes punching, kicking, breaking bones, using a fist to induce a miscarriage, yanking arms out of sockets, hair dragging and mental abuse -- the damage inflicted to her psyche and self esteem by her husband is as cruel. She becomes a cipher, a depressed, alcoholic, beaten in front of her children, who summons just enough energy to take care of her kids. She's whipped, yet still loves a husband who tortures her because she believes he puts up with such a worthless woman.
�He butted me his head. ... He kicked me up and he kicked me down the stairs. Bruised me, scalded me, threatened me. For seventeen years. Hit me, thumped me, raped me. ... Fists, boots, knee, head. Bread knife, saucepan, brush. He tore out clumps of my hair. Cigarettes, lighter ashtray. ... Months went by and nothing happened, but it was always there -- the promise of it.�
Doyle brings out in detail another terror of being abused. The fact that nobody cares or wants to know. Paula is admitted to hospitals by Charlo for having �walked into a door� or �fallen down the stairs.� She hopes someone will ask her what's wrong, fantasizes about telling the truth. But no doctor or nurse ever does. Her mother, her father, never express concern, despite the obvious deterioration of her personality.
There is an irony to this, however. When sister Carmen returns from England, she sees what no one will speak of, and begs Paula to leave. But Paula can't, and in fact hates Carmen for her concern. Besides, Charlo has threatened to kill her if she ever leaves.
Something finally causes Paula to kick Charlo out. It's a spontaneous act, fueled by a terrible evil. When Charlo is booted out, with the help of a large frying pan, Paula discovers her husband, like all abusers, is a coward. He leaves and stays gone.
The Woman Who Walked Into Walls is similar in theme to Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne. But Doyle is more effective than King at showing the after-effects of long-term abuse. Paula Spencer, once a fun-loving pretty girl named Paula O;Leary who married and used to wait with joy for her new husband to come home, is still a shell of her former self. The beatings stopped long ago, and Paula proves herself a survivor. But refilling a self whittled to a hollow shell takes a long time.