From the Booker Prize winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments: the story of an ordinary woman whose extraordinary character will stay with you long after reading.

`He loved me and he beat me. I loved him and I took it. It's as simple as that'

Paula Spencer is thirty-nine, the mother of four and learning to live without Charlo, her violent, abusive husband.

Paula's started drinking more and dreaming more, taking herself back to her contented childhood and audacious teenage years. Everything was better then, not least the music, the soundtrack to her romance with Charlo. As the past floats by and mingles with the present Paula Spencer finds herself coming alive, in all her vulnerability and her strength.

`Roddy Doyle's unsparing examination of a brutal marriage transcends the boundaries of class and nationhood' The Times