Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King, 1993

Read again in 2011



Synopsis: By her own account she’s an old Yankee bitch, Dolores Claiborne; foul temper, foul mouth, foul life. Folks on Little Tall Island have been waiting thirty years to find out just what happened on the eerie dark day her husband, Joe, died – the day of the total eclipse. The police want to know what happened yesterday, when rich, bedridden Vera Donovan, the island’s grande dame sans merci and Dolores’s longtime employer, died suddenly in her care.

With no choice but to talk, Dolores Claiborne talks up a storm. “Everything I did, I did for love,” she says, and this spellbinding novel is at once her confession and her defense. Given a voice as compelling as any in contemporary fiction, her story centers on a disintegrating marriage’s molten core, where the mind’s unblinking eye becomes huge with hate and a woman’s heart turns murderous. It unfolds the strange intimacy between Dolores and Vera, and the link that binds them. It shows, finally, how fierce love can be, and how dreadful its consequences. And how the soul, harrowed by the hardest life, an achieve a kind of grace.

I hadn’t read DC since 1993 when it was first published and luckily I didn’t remember much about it. Luckily because I think my age made it a better and more memorable novel than the first time around. Mainly it’s the years that have gone by and how they make the characters easier to relate to. Seriously, how much perspective can a 20-something have about life? Some, but not enough. Not that I compare my relatively easy life with Dolores’s or Vera’s, but it hasn’t been all smooth and so I can empathize more than I must have been able to in 1993.

Some will say this is out of the ordinary for King, but it really isn’t at heart. So many of his books are about strong women and this is about one of the strongest. Every time I read a review saying King can’t write women (or can’t write at all) or that he doesn’t like women I have to laugh. If you read enough of his work you see he more than likes women; he reveres them. Starting with his mother, Ruth and moving on to his wife, Tabitha, you can see by his writing he fits women into his consciousness as whole and evolved people, not just objects or roles. Don’t take my word for it though, check this out –

Carrie – teenage girl finally snaps and kicks ass
The Shining – Wendy doesn’t give up, ends up ok
The Stand – Frances, Naomi, Mother Abigail are all stand-up girls
Firestarter – a little girl who can control the world if she wants
Cujo – woman v. rabid dog, not everything turns out well, but she doesn’t crumple like a flower
Christine – ok, this one is a stretch, but the car was female…yah yah, forget it
IT – not too long on girls, but Bev finally gets some of her own back
Misery – again, a stretch, but a psycho woman was still kind of a novelty to write back then
Tommyknockers – I always admired how Bobbie lived life on her own terms despite what she did to Peter
Gerald’s Game – at first you’re not sure what to make of Jessie, then she puts the hammer down
DC – of all the put upon women of the world, DC is right up there
Needful Things – has a good mix of female characters, strong, weak and shades in between
Rose Madder – abused wife gets out from under
Lisey’s Story – wife in the shadows gets her shit together
Full Dark, No Stars – rape victim does not lie there and take it, like I Spit on Your Grave in words

If I’ve left any out it’s because I can’t remember enough of them. Ditto with the stories, but you get the idea. King admires women as people, not as women overcoming their gender.

After a while Dolores’s abrasiveness wore away and I began to sympathize with her. She never had much of a chance, but she did the best she could with the cards she was dealt. Even Vera lost some of her ‘high riding bitch’ veneer and got some sympathy from me and I could see why D stayed with her so long. Neither of them had anyone else and they didn’t know how to be different with each other. There’s comfort to be had in long habit. Also I think enduring becomes a habit as well.

Some will say that Joe’s death was Dolores’s revenge, but it wasn’t. It was protection. There wasn’t anything else she could do to protect her kids in the present (surely he would slip and ‘get at’ Serena again) and in the future (the dwindling college money). I liked the planning D put into it though; first with the diversion of the eclipse itself then with what to lure Joe into chasing her to the well. Perfect. She paid a price though; a steep one. I think that plus D’s circumstances showcase how well women are built for suffering.

Writing and style are strong in this one although I don’t know if a New Englander would say warsh; isn’t that more of a mid-west thing? Still, the writing in dialect didn’t bother me in this book like it has in others. King really showcases his talent as a character writer by sticking to Dolores and all that makes her tick. An amazing feat. I didn't catch one false note during the whole thing. And the fact that there are no chapters or breaks of any kind emphasizes that D narrated this whole story in one go; with the cops and Nancy the stenographer from Kennebunk. That they let her off for Joe’s murder is a bit of a stretch, but forensically the case against her for Vera wouldn’t have held up so that one is more understandable. Still the ending is a bit, oh, I don’t know, unreal. After what had gone before being intensely real, it was a bit jarring.