You can unsubscribe at any time. In one scene someone is smoking a DuMaurier Canadian cigarette which was taken from an American cigarette package. Vera Donovan : Husbands die every day, Dolores.
They die I should know, shouldn't I? Sometimes they're driving home from their mistress' apartment and their brakes suddenly fail. An accident, Dolores, can be an unhappy woman's best friend. After one particular situation where Joe assaults Dolores, she waited until the children are in their rooms and attacked him in return, threatening him to never do it again.
This backfired, however, as Selena heard their exchange and came to believe that it was Dolores herself who instigated the fight, which, unfortunately, caused Selena to push Dolores away, and get closer to Joe for a time. In an effort to smooth out issues in their relationship, Dolores accompanied Selena on a ferry ride home from school. On the ride, Selena reluctantly revealed that Joe had been molesting her.
Shocked, Dolores had no idea how to handle things, and her first instinct was to withdraw their children's savings and make a run for it. However, after a meeting with her bank manager, she found out that Joe had already taken all that money for himself. A short time later, Dolores broke down in tears in front of Vera. Once Dolores was done crying, Vera asked what was wrong and Dolores confided in her how Joe had abused her, molested Selena, and stolen her children's savings. Vera had a veiled discussion with her, indirectly suggesting that she should kill Joe, under the guise of "husbands have accidents".
On the day of a solar eclipse, Dolores got Joe drunk and then tricked him into falling down a boarded-up well in their backyard, with the intent of making it look like he had gotten drunk and fallen down the well by accident. Her plan succeeded, although some members of the community voiced their belief that Dolores had more to do with Joe's death than she claimed. Afterwards, Dolores and Vera eventually became lifelong friends with a love-hate relationship.
At the end of her lifetime, the senile Vera would frequently become agitated, believing herself to be under attack by imaginary entities.
On one such occasion, she panicked and ended up wheeling herself down the staircase in her home. I was irritated when I noticed this. Truly irritated and disgusted. Come on, guys! Let's push beyond the Mad Men era and give women more to do than strut around in tight pants and weep in the corner.
While chatting about these gender stereotypes in novels, one friend said he thought Stephen King wrote women fairly well.
And he was right. Dolores Claiborne revived my faith in male writers. I'll keep reading King's books, but I may take a break from the other guys. What was interesting to me is how differently the book tells the same story, compared to the screenplay. In the novel, Dolores tells her story in a long confessional conversation to investigators, so it's all her voice and perspective. In the movie, the screen writers brought in the character of the daughter, Selena, which added another dimension and perspective to the story.
This is why I love comparing source material to the movie adaptation — it's fascinating to see how the writers approach the story in different ways.
In both cases, the women that felt like caricatures weren't the main characters, but there were several scenes that made me cringe. Both of those men publish a lot of books, and I've read other novels by them that included women who were portrayed with more complexity. It's possible that the writers were pushing a deadline and the easiest thing to do was fall back on silly stereotypes, rather than create a more nuanced character.
The experience has made me pay closer attention to how male authors write about women. Favorite Quotes "I understood something else, too — that one kiss didn't change a thing. Anyone can give a kiss, after all; a kiss was how Judas Iscariot showed the Romans which one was Jesus. I learned better over the next ten years. Doing that's about the most dangerous thing a person can do, I think, because a coward is more afraid of being discovered than he is of anything else, even dying.
Sometimes, being a bitch is all a woman has to hang on to. View all 13 comments. Kathy Bates. What an actress. Liked them both a lot. This is especially true if you thought that King only wrote straight h Kathy Bates. This is especially true if you thought that King only wrote straight horror. But read the books first.
King created two complex women characters in these two books who I consider polar opposites to one another. And they are, excepting the face of Kathy Bates I pictured while reading this past week, and also in that small, dark place a person is driven to when there is no other choice that remains. Annie started there. Dolores goes there for a short time because she has to, and sadly it alters everything in her life thereafter.
After her kids are grown and gone. After the woman she cared for, and learned to love as a friend, has just died. After no one is left. Reading it in the book is where it makes sense, from the lips of Vera Donovan the woman Dolores worked and cared for — the real bitch for a time. Like the characters, this book ended up being deceivingly complex because the things that are not directly experienced.
We are only shown a glimpse of all those years that pass after the Eclipse and the Well. It tied things together for me, as it bonded these two women over so many years. Because despite the opinion of being horror writer he is quite good observer of life, not specially prophetic, revealing or something, just good.
Also he seems to have an eye to render quite an atmosphere of time and place he describes. And to me picture of reality, even if distorted, an unspecified sense of growing horror heightened additionally by carefully chosen setting, whether it was a desolated after the season hotel or solitary house on the island or just amusement park, are enough to maintain the suspense and keep me interested.
Novel is written in a form of monologue of title protagonist. Oh my, Dolores is a fast talker, indeed. She goes to police station because after the death of Vera Donovan, her former employer, lately a demented person under her care, she seems to be a natural suspect.
And so begins confession from her life. And she definitely has something to talk about. She throws words like a machine gun, she's aggravatingly digressive at times but the language she speaks sounds very real, sometimes she's full of understanding and compassion then again frustrated and on the verge of committing a murder, at least verbally.
Her talk is chaotic, the events of the last days are intertwined with facts from several decades ago. She tells us about that old witch Vera to go smoothly to her own marriage. And all this in almost one breath. But it worked for me. To give the floor Dolores and let her pour out her heart and anger and fear. The picture that emerges from that talking is not the pretty one.
Dolores had such a lousy life. I wanted to know how she negotiated with children aftermath. I was interested in her relatationship with Vera Donovan for before the latter turned into demented harpy she was, well, a harpy but a very smart and her mind was razor-sharp but her life wasn't a barrel of laughs either. I found figure of Dolores well written, neither too exaggerated nor inept poor thing.
And I think that this is the strength of this book. I do not believe in vampires or other creatures but evil and bad people is a completely different thing. For even at the moment I am writing these words somewhere there is a villain that hurts a child.
All in all, I found this one a very decent reading and quite successful appointment with the author that is rather not my cup of tea. View all 12 comments. In fact, the title has always felt so familiar that I was half convinced I'd either read the novel or seen the movie before, although that was not the case. True enough Kathy Bates played the lead role of Dolores, and Jennifer Jason Leigh played her daughter, and I remember there had been some fanfare around the release of the movie in the mids released in and both actresses were very familiar to 4.
True enough Kathy Bates played the lead role of Dolores, and Jennifer Jason Leigh played her daughter, and I remember there had been some fanfare around the release of the movie in the mids released in and both actresses were very familiar to me, but no, I hadn't seen the movie somehow. And now I've read the thing and know what the story is about and considering what I've been going through in my most disturbing and all too frequent moments of recurring PTSD episodes in the last few years, I see there is indeed a strange connection there.
I should backtrack a little. I want to keep this as brief as I can and I don't want to delve deep into personal matters here. Plenty enough has been said about this novel by now, but I'll give my version of it. Dolores is a housekeeper who has worked for a very wealthy woman called Vera Donovan and was eventually promoted as her personal companion when Vera became incontinent with age.
That is, since the day before the story begins in the book. Now Dolores has been accused of Vera Donovan's murder. Vera has been found half tumbled down the stairs in her grand mansion of a house all broken up dead, and things look very much like Dolores is guilty of murder, with an eye-witness putting her right over the body, with a rolling pin nearby.
The book is told in a monologue, as Dolores is taken into the police station and decides she must come clean of an old crime to prove she is innocent of this recent death. She goes all the way back to her teenage years, when she met her husband in high school and their early courtship she liked how smooth his forehead was—in retrospect, that was the only thing she found appealing about him Donovan when she was pregnant with her daughter Selena.
The crux of the action takes place on the 20th of July , the day when there was a total solar eclipse, which is when she planned and executed the murder of her abusive alcoholic husband by luring him to falling into a disused old well. Stephen King has always impressed me as a writer. I may not have read that many of his titles, but I've been reading him since I was a teenager with a title here and there and gaps of many years between books.
I haven't delved much into the real horror stuff. I read Carrie as a teenager, but otherwise I've tended to prefer his psychological dramas, which I think everyone will agree is his great strength in all his books. But he introduced a terribly intriguing element in this story that was mentioned a couple of times and then left floating with no follow up at all. Dolores has a clear vision of a girl who has suffered abuse and is certain the girl exists in real life somewhere.
But the subject is dropped and never mentioned again. It made me wonder. Is this meant as just a strange recurring interlude, a sideshow? Is this something he does often? Was it simply a flaw in this one book? Is it an idea he meant to develop further in a follow up to Dolores Claiborne that didn't make it past the first draft?
I mention it here because that is the one thing that keeps this book from being a five-star experience for me, because the lack of development felt like something that had been forgotten and unfinished more than anything else, while in every other way the novel is a memorable experience and touches on subjects I am very much attuned to and have personal experience with. Such as about the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her children from a bad father.
About the estrangement that sometimes follows. About various forms of abuse. About ghosts, which are basically projections of our worst fears which we somehow manage to give "real" dimension to, mostly from sheer terror which must become concentrated bundles of energy, perhaps because projected from our broken psyches.
Stephen King understand so much about human beings. He writes about people in Maine and their way of life almost exclusively, yet his stories are universal somehow. He writes with emotional intelligence and when he gets a good story going, even if it's coming from a single voice sitting in a police station delivering one practically uninterrupted monologue, you can't do anything but pay attention and lay awake missing out on sleep if you need to, just so you can reach the end, because how are you going to possibly put this down and catch any z's if you keep wondering what happens next?!
The audiobook version was great. The narrator is very convincing as Dolores. Almost five stars. By a hair. Just that unfinished business. It'll just keep niggling at me. If anyone has ideas about it, please PM me.
View all 21 comments. Shelves: i-said , top. I have been sitting in a room having a little break, from A Dance with Dragons , listening to Dolores tell me her story.
About her husband and what happened during that eclipse. About her employer but; mostly, and most importantly, about herself: as a woman, and a wife, and a mother. The bell resonates. I fell into her voice and found myself in that small town, on that little island, off the coast of Maine with I have been sitting in a room having a little break, from A Dance with Dragons , listening to Dolores tell me her story.
I fell into her voice and found myself in that small town, on that little island, off the coast of Maine with her: listening to the events that led up to that eclipse and after; until now. As for the now: Vera Donovan, her employer; another woman with a different kind of history, lay dead. Dolores Claiborne is a classic, disturbing look at just some, of what happens around us all, both today and yesterday. I cannot believe that I just now read this book! Problem solved. Now I simply must get my hands on Gerald's Game to read again.
This one lends a renewed perspective. Thank you Trudi for reminding me about this gem. View all 20 comments. View all 4 comments. I managed to reread Dolores Claiborne in under 24 hours. I was thirteen when I first read it, and even then it only took three days. With no chapter breaks and one of the best vernacular-heavy voices King's ever taken on, this book's engine very nearly purrs. Dolores Claiborne is, in my opinion, Stephen King's most well-delivered story.
There's zero filler, and that's unheard of where King's concerned. The book is so succinct that the movie version actually had to add more content instead of cut I managed to reread Dolores Claiborne in under 24 hours.
The book is so succinct that the movie version actually had to add more content instead of cutting content to make it fit. To give you an example of how rare that is, no other King book has ever been extended for film.
His short stories and novellas have, but never one of his novels. Normally, I suggest reading King's books in chronological order, but I believe Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne should be read in reverse order.
Gerald's Game was released first, but you get a better experience reading these twin novels if you read Dolores Claiborne beforehand. And in case you're wondering what I mean by "twin novels", I'll explain: Both of the aforementioned books connect in the middle, kinda like siamese twins.
The main characters of both books share a psychic link that has absolutely nothing to do with either story. For some reason, they are able to see one another for a short period of time.
It's fucking odd, so be prepared. If you do not know about it going in, it can be jarring because it is completely out of place. King fans won't mind because we know it's just par for the course with him, but new-to-King readers will definitely be asking themselves WTF? His literary novellas are outstanding, too, as are some of his future novels, but I would start here. Damn good character writing. Some of the best I've ever read. Final Judgment: Eclipses the rest.
This book was a little gem. I did a mixture of reading and listening to the audiobook and the narrator was fantastic. I think what makes it stand out is the unique format of the story, which was Dolores giving her testimony to the police after her employer died in her care.
Although it touched on a horrifying topic, it was not suspenseful or scary--although a little chilling—and was so realistic that it felt more like listening to a true story. Stephen King never ceases to amaze me with the characters he creates. I think so far this may be my favorite.
Highly recommend! Before being a constant reader I was a constant viewer, getting as many of his film adaptations on video. Dolores Claiborne was one of the movies that I repeatedly watched in the 90's, so it's slightly strange that it's taken until now to finally read the book.
I feel that this is one of King's underappreciated classics! Maybe Kathy Bates portrayal is so firmly cemented to this character as I could really hear her voice as the events are narrated by Claiborne herself. King writes such strong charact Before being a constant reader I was a constant viewer, getting as many of his film adaptations on video.
King writes such strong characters and her determination to stand up against abusive Joe makes for one of the best his ever written. Whilst there are no real supernatural elements that is synonymous with his work, the real horror is finding out the true extend of how evil the person living in your own home can truly be.
I also love the monologue approach, it somehow makes the very real and terrifying. Dolores Claiborne is a work of art - she's not the typical heroine that carries a novel with her beauty, intelligence, station in life, or luck of fate.
Instead she's average with her life but takes herself up a notch, makes herself stand out by standing strong in the face of the brutal winds life storms her with.
It's easy to sympathize with a character who fell into the familiar pitfall of marrying the wrong man, marrying too young, and living life to regret and endure that decision. It's believable to follow a heroine who works hard, even if it doesn't get her far, who puts up with the dirt that's dished out. She's crass, crude, loud-mouthed, and perhaps a little bitter - but she's also bold, hard-working, courageous, and intelligent with the way she handles people and the lemons life tosses her.
Instead of bemoaning, she endures. When struggle is inevitable, she hangs on. And when murder is the only option left, well King writes Drama well. That can be seen here as well as other times he's ventured into it, such as his anthology Different Seasons. This is not a horror novel - save a few creepy scenes near the end that may or may not have been stress induced hallucinations.
It focuses on the heart and hope of a woman who is pulled under by life's circumstances, having her reveal the mysteries of her life under interrogation. While she's being suspected in the murder of one, she chooses to start with another story instead. The books a little strange since King has most of it in dialogue, and not all that dialogue is a smooth flowing pleasure to read. Island dialect holds strong and convincingly true.
After awhile it flows together when you get into the story, though, and you hardly notice you're mainly reading about a woman sitting in a chair while she talks. The story is so interesting and demented that it's hard to put down.
There surely must be slow spurts in the story-line, but I didn't notice them; the pacing held up well and it stands as one of his greatest works for me. A lot of his stuff is too fluffed out, but not in this case. The perfect length for an intriguing story. Why four stars instead of five then? While I try to judge a book by its own footing and not compare it to its film, the movie wouldn't leave my mind. It's been a favorite of my mine for years, way before reading the book, and after seeing some of the magic they weaved with plot changes on film, I couldn't help finding that the book didn't hold up as well.
Selena's memory lapses and emotional angst added to the story while rolling on the TV, and I found myself missing some of those touches in the written version. Both versions hold the point: a friendship forged into strong bonds that last through life and beyond, no matter the station or the circumstance; a mother's protective love for her child pushing her into things she wouldn't ordinarily be able to do.
Definitely recommended for fans of any kind of fiction - whether a horror reader or not. As Dolores Claiborne narrates her story of murder, abuse and revenge to authorities without any chapter breaks , I stayed totally engrossed.
You will despise her evil husband and love her entertaining dialogue with Vera as they become friends. I thought the movie was great, but like the differences in the book better. If you want a fast, page-turning read, this is it! View all 6 comments. I think yes. If I had read this with no context I never would have believed it was Stephen King. This is nothing like his normal format.
All the main characters are women and their all strong, intelligent, powerful, forward-thinking badasses. And it's written by King? I'm shaking. I feel like he is capable of this storytelling and character development but is expected to write white male protagonists because that's what his readers want.
Which is sad to me. Because this book is phenomenal and no one talks about it. Hands down. It is all told as a statement to the police. You hear the chair squeaking on the linoleum. You hear her get closer and farther away from the mic. You hear her open a drawer, close it, pour Jim Beam in a glass and you hear her drink it. It's like a play.
You would believe that it's really happening and you're hearing this women's story from her own mouth but you just happened to be looking away. Or if you close your eyes and put headphones in, you're transported. I can't wait to watch the movie.
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