The Women Behind the Door
A novel of hauntings ... There is lightness here, too — lightness and humor. Gulls make a frequent appearance, symbols of independence ... Doyle is superb at channeling Paula’s interior voice: witty, cranky, desperately honest. The dialogue is spot-on.
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I don’t want to hear from a man writing in the voice of a battered, alcoholic older woman (a well-worn template of female suffering). I just don’t ... The good news for Doyle is that I read his new Paula Spencer novel, The Women Behind the Door, anyway. And that he’s excellent at capturing the kind of tension I’m describing and the fraught stories we tell about ourselves as a result ... There’s much to admire here. And for Doyle fans, the novel will feel familiar: It is unflinching and dark, brutal in its economy, wry and mostly devastating.
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The women...are so flawed: bruised, crass, guilt-ridden, incontinent, self-centered, blunt to a fault, furious at themselves and each other and the world. And they are such wonderful company: so funny, so direct, so emotional, so surprising ... A story about the tragedy of resilience. It’s wonderful that Paula has made it to this late chapter, in which a kind of fulfillment has finally appeared to be briefly at hand ... In Doyle’s crisp, wry language, the story of that pain is just the story of life, along with all its small moments of levity and unexpected connection.
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