Paula O'Leary Spencer

Paula is the main character, and the first-person narrator of the book. Paula is an Irish girl with many brothers and sisters, and she grew up watching her father exert tyrannical control over their household. Although she started out with high hopes for romance, education, and career, she was soon told that she was stupid, and her early puberty made her a target of constant sexual harassment at school. Paula already knew she wanted to be bad when she met Charlo and fell for him, and she married him to spite her father, even though Charlo had already started abusing her. Paula tells her own story, but she seems defined by her resignation to the unpleasant life she chose for herself. Paula managed to blame herself throughout years of unspeakable sadism and abuse, hiding her bruises from the world even as she desperately looked for escape...