The Woman Who Walked into Doors, by Roddy Doyle (Minerva, £6.99 in UK)

Paula Spenser at 39 has no illusions left. Marriage to an unpredictable bully has taught her all about humiliation, regret, fear, loss and becoming invisible. She has also learned to keep her gin in the garden shed and to see herself as others do. Doyle has entered the mind of a betrayed, beaten wife and mother who was once a young girl with romantic notions. Hardened by life, Paula tells her story with relentless candour. There are linguistic shifts that don't ring quite true, while her childhood almost sets the scene for the horrors which follow; yet this remarkable performance explores the vivid randomness of memory. Raw, powerful, unsentimental and convincing, it is both lament and survivor's tale. Set in Dublin, it could be any life, anywhere.