SOURCE: Keen, Suzanne. “Irish Troubles.” Commonweal 123, no. 17 (11 October 1996): 21-3.

In the following review, Keen comments that Doyle's strength lies in his ability to propel narratives with dialogue, but maintains that the story of The Woman Who Walked into Doors cannot adequately be told solely with dialogue.

I have read each of Roddy Doyle's novels (The Commitments [1988], The Snapper [1990], The Van [1991], and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha [1993]) with increasing enjoyment and admiration, so it is with real disappointment that I must report that in The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Doyle reaches the limits of his technique.

The topic of the novel commands the reader's attention: thirty-nine-year-old Paula Spencer, a working-class Irish-woman, recalls as much as she can about eighteen years of abuse at the hands of her husband Charlo. Doyle does not make Paula a cut-out martyr: she struggles with alcoholism; she continues to find her brutal spouse...