Dolores Claiborne By Stephen King
By Stephen King
Originally meant to be published in one volume along with Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne recounts the story of Dolores's interrogation for the murder of her employer and long-time companion Vera Donovan. Through telling the tale of why she is innocent of the crime, Dolores tells about the real crime she committed decades before. That crime being the murder of her husband, an alcoholic who abused Dolores and sexually abused their daughter. In the telling, Dolores recounts her acquaintance and employment with Vera, a woman who reveled in being a bitch and who gave Dolores the idea that husbands have "accidents" all of the time, as Vera's did. After Dolores's husband drains her children's college funds dry, she decides she's had enough and plots to take care of him for good during the same eclipse that occurred in Gerald's Game.
This book has similar ideas to that one, with pervert fathers, abusive husbands, and of course the eclipse. However, where Gerald's Game failed through its inappropriate voice and extraneous elements that dragged the story down, Dolores Claiborne is the opposite. It is a tight narrative with an appropriate voice, a voice that rings true and delivers a personality that is singular and true. That said, this book, like Gerald's Game should have lost the connecting thread between the two books with the visions Dolores has of Jessie as a little girl in Gerald's Game. They didn't work in either book and if a reader came to this without knowing the connection they would be lost.
I have to take points off for that, which sucks because it would be a 5 star book if not for those bits. I'm giving it 4.5 stars. Stephen King does so well with small casts of characters and a tight plot.
Some connections to other books:
A mention of Shawshank prison, from "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," among other stories.
Mention of a creepy little town where no one lives, which I believe alludes to Castle Rock.
And the mention of Jessie in Gerald's Game.
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