Wow, amazingly enough I have apparently never written about this book before. Fun fact before I start: this was apparently the best selling book the year I was born.
Well, this book is a testimony of sorts. Dolores Claiborne is a woman who lived her whole life on the fictional Maine island of Little Tall. (Hey, while I'm thinking of it, how come the map in the beginning shows all of Stephen King's made-up Maine towns but 'Salem's Lot?) She's about sixty when she is making this testimony, but this is more or less a tale of her life. She's making the testimony to two cops and a stenographer because Vera Donavan, her longtime employer, died in her care and it seemed pretty clear that Dolores killed her--well, due to circumstantial evidence. So not only does Dolores have to explain that, she also chose to explain everything--including the mysterious circumstances under which her husband Joe died, thirty years prior.
The story is told as she tells the cops and the stenographer, and though she responds and interacts with them, their dialogue is never recorded, nor are their actions or reactions--which I think is pretty clever, borderline genius. Because you can't be swayed by them, but you know that they're reacting exactly the same way as you, and it makes the epilogue so much more satisfying and all the more sweeter. It's a lot different from his other books in a lot of ways--even how it is written is extremely different--so it's hard to say "well, if you liked A-Aardvark by Stephen King, you'd like this..." or what, but it's worth a shot. The movie was actually really good too, which was almost a little disappointing when I watched it because I was in the mood for a campy Stephen King movie.
OH, my first note of all doesn't have that much to do with the story either--it's written with Dolores's, er, dialect in mind. I just always found it interesting because... Well, Mark Twain's books like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer are written in dialect, thick Southern accents. And that makes it nearly impossible for me to read them. It's like a mental roadblock, simple as that--like in Village of the Damned (I think) when that dude tries to block his mind by imagining a brick wall. Simple as that, only I don't do it on purpose, and it's really frustrating. But my mind just shuts down. But Dolores Claiborne doesn't bother me--granted, I don't know a whole lot of people from Maine specifically, but I do unquestionably know what a New Englander sounds like. So the accent ain't no thang, so to speak. Shout outs to Stephen King for writing about New England, even if it is mostly Maine (Maine is a teensy bit creepy though.)
Anyways. Page three is when Dolores spills the beans that she in fact killed her husband Joe, though everyone on the island has more or less known or been convinced of that for the past thirty years--and she denies killing Vera vehemently, though she doesn't get to what happened until much later. It was more or less circumstantial, though I don't want to quite spoil it.
The reason why I was reading this was to see if I ought to toss it, so to speak--like Chuck Palahniuk's Diary, whenever I think "hey, maybe I should read this book again", I automatically remember the grossest scene in the book that kept me away for so long in the first place. In Diary, it's when the narrator remembers her dead husband piercing his nipple with a button. In this book, it's when Dolores recalls the later years of caring for Vera: Vera went senile towards the end, and got mean--as Vera puts it, one of her ways of being a bitch. She just spread her literal shit EVERYWHERE--she would try to "save up" on her crap and create a real nasty mess for Dolores just because. The worst one described, it's all over her, it's spread on the walls--and she's giggling and laughing like it's so cute. It's a disgusting scene.
This book also has these recurring elements--as Vera slips into dementia she starts seeing things she describes as wires coming out from corners, or dust bunnies coming out from under her bed. This always throws me. It seems pretty clear that they're metaphors for old demons coming back and what have you, and it is somewhat clear (or at least possible) that Vera is describing whatever she's seeing the best she can and that's not necessarily what they are--like reports of supposed UFOs before planes were invented. They're described as cigars in the sky, saucers, etc, because that's the best frame of reference that could be conjured. Plus, Vera is losing her mind at this point in the testimony.
The only thing that really throws the idea of Vera doing her best to describe an unknown thing is that later Dolores has a dream of her own dust bunnies, that they grow together and form first Vera's husband's head and then her dead husband's head (although the timeline in the testimony goes back and forth, that memory is obviously from a time after Joe's death) and it gnashes its teeth and whatnot... I have trouble believing Dolores would have that trouble too, even if it was really harrowing. That whole bit is tough to swallow, especially because it doesn't have a lot of other connections to anything in particular mentioned or hinted at in the book. (Vera was a little anal retentive when she was still all there, and maybe her anal retentiveness and inner demons got merged, but... Ehh. I don't know. I'm just not feeling it.)
The start of the main trouble, Dolores explains, well... No, not so much explains, but it becomes clear later on that it is the major turning point in the book. When she first presents it it only has importance as being the last time dead husband, Joe, ever beat her. He hit her in the kidneys and after dinner she whacks him in the side of the head with their cream pitcher, and then brandishes their hatchet, making it pretty clear what will happen if he raises a hand again. Their daughter Selena wakes up, takes in the scene, but Dolores sends her to bed without turning around. Of course, we find out that Selena saw everything and thought wrongfully--as the man visiting Vera's the morning before the testimony takes place--that Dolores did it--that it was all Dolores's fault. You know.
She also tempts Joe to kill her if he's that mad, but she assures him at Shawshank they're sure to have "one of those orange suits just your size" (King 68).
But months pass, Selena hits puberty and enters high school... and the two seem to get close, and Selena seems to get cold towards Dolores. Dolores isn't stupid, she knows how that night looked and figured it was the cause, but... it's even worse than she thought. See, she thought maybe they were just bonding, whatever. Well, Joe decided he liked that. A little bit more than a father should, if you get my meaning. The second she hears this, "All at once I understood everythin, and Joe St. George's days were numbered from that moment on" (King 95). So clearly a powerful motive behind the murder exists--and I think at that point no-one would question the murder. Like I said, King does not give any direction to indicate how the stenographer and cops listening to the testimony react, and it does him well. Unquestionably they react in the same complex way the reader does (who wouldn't?) and extra direction would just hurt it and make it unrealistic and awkward.
She then describes how life had changed in the house in the past few months--how at first they were close then they grew apart, and Selena began avoiding him--Dolores explains how the second oldest, Joe Junior, began avoiding his father as well--but I'm not sure if it was sexual abuse in his case, at least, Dolores never talks about it. She seems kind of disconnected to her other two--well, or they're not as important to the plot. (But I am curious!) But yeah, it seems that Joe Junior just realized that his father was little and hateful on his own and hated them for that. Almost everything in his life seems to have been done in reaction to his father--Dolores recalls an A+ project Joe Junior did on FDR. Joe Sr hated FDR the most of all the presidents, referred to him as "'Franklin D. Sheenyvelt'" (King 133). ("Sheeny" is a slur for a Jewish person.) And we learn pretty early on that Joe has gone on to a career in politics as a Democrat--just like FDR, just the party his father always hated. Meanwhile, the youngest child, Pete, wanted to be just like his scumbag father (obviously he didn't know about the sexual abuse and whatnot, but he imitated Joe's walks and mannerisms and rude language and other behaviours) is revealed to have been killed in Vietnam. Dolores refers to him as her "lost little lamb" at some point (I'm sorry--it seems that I didn't mark the spot!) so it seems as though after his father's death he just kind of wandered off there and got killed--but would have disappeared anyways. If it hadn't been Nam, it would have been something, anything.
She tells Vera about it in a few days at work, and Vera listens pretty calmly. Keep in mind--Vera's husband had died by this point too, and she was more or less living all year on the island. And Vera listens and goes, "'Husbands die every day, Dolores. Why, one is probably dying right now, while we're sitting here talking. They die and leave their wives their money... I should know, shouldn't I?'... 'After all, look what happened to mine... An accident... is sometimes an unhappy woman's best friend'" (King 146-147). Dolores almost faints dead away and ask what Vera means, Vera says "'Why, whatever you think'" (King 147), and that's more or less that. It's obvious... But not quite. Not quite.
So an accident is orchestrated. I'd rather not share how she did it--though I guess I've spoiled a lot--but Dolores did it. I don't feel bad about this one because she goes out and says it on page three, remember?
"'Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive,' she says. 'Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to'" (King 169). This quote probably looks a little silly out of context, but it has stuck with from the very first time I read this and every time I read this book I'm almost in suspense for it. In terms of the book, it means a lot, and it's almost like it has its own weird power.
Oh, and here's one thing I somehow never realized, any of the others times I've read this book. Dolores's maiden name is Claiborne, the name she took in marriage was "St. George". Hm... in Britain names like that are/were pronounced a little different, like St. John as I think the last name of the fellow in Jane Eyre would be pronounced "Sinjin", for example. But I wonder if over here it would be the same? Well, either way, that's not the reason why I made this note. A short time after Dolores tells Vera what had happened with Selena and Joe, it's announced that there will be a visible eclipse that will cover the island. Vera decides to hold a huge party and in getting the house ready goes a little nutty and fires some help over something stupid--the girl drops a cracked plate or some such thing. Dolores chewed Vera out afterwards, and Vera gave her the job back. Anyways, after Vera leaves to the ferry with her guests, the girl who had been rehired thanks Dolores for what she did and says: "'I know it was you, Missus St. George [that got my job back]. No one else'd dare speak up to the old dragon'" (King 173). Honest to God, never got that before. (Referencing the story of St. George and the dragon, guys!) I have no idea how I missed it...
One thing that bothers me is, there are hints to a little girl in this book, kind of like how in Salem's Lot the opening chapters and ending chapters are about an unnamed man and a boy. Whenever I read that book, I always think that maybe I have some grasp of who the man and the boy might be... Mark, if that was the guy's name, and some sole boy survivor...? But in retrospect it never quite seems to pan out. (Seeing the movie might actually help.) Same with this. Occasionally Dolores has visions of a girl around ten years old. The first time she sees her is a few hours before the eclipse, in her vision the girl is sitting on her dad's lap with an eclipse viewer, and she says that maybe the dad's hand was too far up the leg. Right before Dolores goes through and kills Joe, she sees the little girl again, searching under her bed for something. In this vision the girl looks up at Dolores, sees her seeing her, and asks who Dolores is. Many years later she thinks of the girl again, and never explains it or even looks back on it: "'That girl's in trouble... the one I saw on the day of the eclipse, the one who saw me. She's all grown up now, almost Selena's age, but she's in terrible trouble'" (King 255). Well--I said I didn't understand then, but a quick look at Wikipedia reveals the girl to be the young version of the main character in King's book Gerald's Game. Supposedly that last vision refers to a specific event or some such thing in that book. Not sure why Dolores and the girl are connected, actually, but the premise of that book looks kind of interesting, anyways....
Anyways, Dolores moves on, talks about her relationship with Selena "now"--because, she says, at the end of the day, all that she did (in terms of killing Joe) was for her. Selena in this time doesn't eat enough, drinks like crazy (like Joe did) and never comes around. Unmarried, of course. Though they write and talk on the phone, they're basically estranged. I would love to see this story and how the aftermath looks from her point of view. Who knows? Stephen King has been working on a sequel to The Shining for a while, maybe this will be next...
There's a crazy revelation right at the end of the book, but I don't want to spoil it. But it has to do with Vera, and it is HUGE.
The book ends strongly, and the epilogue is immensely satisfying. It implies that there's still a tad bit more, and like I said, it would probably require a sequel of sorts from Selena's POV, but I want to see it so badly (even if it isn't necessary at all to the main point of the story). So, yeah. This is pretty different from Stephen King's other books, but it's the most real--and not just because the only supernatural occurrences are Dolores's visions of the girl in Gerald's Game. King creates a convincing--um, character study probably isn't the right word, but he certainly creates a realistic character that hits home hard. And the way he presents his story is very clever and very satisfying. High five, Stephen King!
Works Cited: King, Stephen. Dolores Claiborne. Viking: United States of America, 1993.
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