She is an aging island woman with a foul mouth and a bad temper. Her back hurts because she's worked most of her sixty-four years scrubbing toilets and washing floors. One of her children is dead, and the other two are distant from her, both geographically and emotionally. She is Dolores Claiborne, and she has been accused of murder for the second time in her life.

The novel detailing this remarkable woman's life of trials is at once comfortably familiar and stunningly unique. Familiar because we've met women like Dolores Claiborne before (one of King's greatest strengths is his ability to create characters we can easily see in the supermarket or on the bus). And unique because of the style: one long, uninterrupted narrative, told as if Dolores were speaking aloud, and we were her captive audience.

She has quite a bit to say, and with good reason. For years, she had been the paid companion of one Vera Donovan, an old and sickly woman who has long been at the mercy of her own psychoses. The day before the tale begins, the mailman found Vera dead on the staircase in her house, Dolores standing over the woman with a rolling pin.

That would have been enough to arouse suspicion, but what really has the people on Little Tall Island talking is the fact that Dolores has been involved in a similar incident before" Dolores' husband, Joe St. George, was discovered during the summer of 1963, dead at the bottom of a well. Everyone suspected Dolores of murdering her husband, but no one could prove it, and she went free ... but, as we eventually discover, with a price.

But now it's happened again, and Dolores must both confess and defend herself in a story brimming with secrets and surprises. Like King's previous novel It, the past and the present events of Dolores Claiborne overlap, each time frame both illuminating and eclipsing the other. Seemingly unconnected sequences scattered throughout the narrative neatly lock into a cohesive whole by the end, each mystery solved and explained subtly and cunningly.

Readers who may fear that King has lost his touch with things that go bump in the night needen't worry. The description of a nightmare Dolores has is chilling enough for the reader to check under the bed for whatever may lurk there, and the scenes comprising Joe St. George's death rank among King's scariest moments.

Dolores Claiborne is an ambitious novel with enough energy and freshness to be considered a masterpeice among King's wide canon. More focused than the previous Gerald's Game (with which this book is intimately linked) and less sprawling a saga as The Tommyknockers, Dolores Claiborne is a highly readable, thoroughly enjoyable, and ultimately convincing story of a woman's harsh journey of the soul.

Personal Observations

I got Dolores Claiborne as a reward for making the Honor Roll for the first and only time in High School. I began reaidng it in the car, and I was like, "Wow! Some pages must be missing!"

But I read on. Remember, this is a sixteen-year-old boy who's liked King's gory stuff and scary stuff up to this point. But I loved this book. Once again, King surprised me with a book I may not have read ordinarily. The big revelation in the middle was disturbing and sad, but more real and tragic than that of Gerald's Game's. I really liked the eclipse stuff and the fact that the psychic flashes connect these two books, even though I like Dolores a whole heck of a lot more.

Also, and this is still an opinion, but I firmly believe that if the name on the book had been Jane Smiley or Alice Walker, Dolores Claiborne would have won a Pulitzer Prize. Remember how they tried to nominate It and the board threatened to quit? It disturbs me to think that even among the literati, books are seen at face value as apposed to the stuff inside. Oh well.

Movie Adaptation

This film, directed by Taylor Hackford, is one of the very best of King's filmed adaptations. Perhaps unfortunately, it seems as if King's most translatable work involves person-to-peson drama (i.e. Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and Misery.) as apposed to the horror which made him famous. However, with King films being what they are, we have to take what we can get.

As it is, the film changes the plotline only slightly. Selena, Dolores' daughter, takes on a far greater role than the one in the book. She has returned to Little Tall Island from New York to defend her mother, though she doesn't much care for Dolores and hates Little Tall Island. As the case investigating Vera Donovan's death progresses, Selena's memory begins to come back, bringing back pleasant memories such as the time on the ferry with her Dad and the bright Christmas memory of her slashing her throat with a Christmas tree bulb.

One of the best adaptions of one of King's best books, this is one I reccomend extremely highly!

Audio Adaptation

Dolores Claiborne is the King book most suited to an audio adaption, and it doesn't disappoint. Frances Sternhagen does an amazing job as Dolores, both capturing the voice and accent perfectly. (Stenhagen is not new to King turf, either. She played the Sherriff's wife in the film adaption Misery and Gina in the miniseries Golden Years.) In the top five of the best audio adaptions, this is one you'll want for your collection. I've listened to it three times and I still love it.