The Women Behind the Door

July 22, 2024
Booker Prize winner Doyle’s third Paula Spencer novel (after 1996’s The Woman Who Walked into Doors and 2006’s Paula Spencer) is an emotionally raw mother-daughter drama. Paula, a widow in her mid-60s, who’s in recovery for alcoholism, returns home from her Covid-19 vaccine appointment in May 2021 to find her 40-something daughter Nicola waiting for her. Nicola, who cared for Paula during earlier family crises and has continued to supplement her mom’s finances, seems content to be mothered for a change. For reasons that don’t come out until later, she’s left her husband and children behind. Over the next 18 months, as Paula deals with a nasty bout of the virus and worries about money, Doyle eventually works up to revealing why Nicola came to stay with her. If that disclosure is somewhat anticlimactic, it’s ultimately less important than Paula’s reaction to Nicola’s news, which comes to shape her understanding not only of their fraught relationship but also of how her own past traumas impacted Nicola. Despite these revelatory conversations, Nicola remains something of a cipher; Paula, on the other hand, is a richly complex character who continues to redefine herself while also contending with her regrets and past failures. Doyle’s compassionate chronicle of recovery and reconciliation is worth seeking out.