Author: Stephen King
Date Read: 14 May 2011
Official Summary
Suspected of killing Vera Donovan, her wealthy employer, Dolores Claiborne tells police the story of her life, harkening back to her disintegrating marriage and the suspicious death of her violent husband, Joe St. George, thirty years earlier. Dolores also tells of Vera’s physical and mental decline and of her loyalty to an employer who has become emotionally demanding in recent years.
My thoughts:
There is no doubt that I am biased when it comes to any book written by Stephen King. The man is a master, and I am yet to read anything he has written that doesn’t simply leave me in awe.
Dolores Claiborne was dedicated to his mother, and the story was rather different to the other books I have read. There are no chapters in the book. The entire story is Dolores sitting at the police station telling her story. A story about abuse and murder, about a woman who finally had enough and did what needed to be done to protect her child.
Ten years after reading this book, as I put together this summary, I can sit remember a piece in the book where Dolores talks about hanging out sheets on a cold winter’s morning, about the wind blowing the sheets into her face and her hands cramping in the cold. That is what I love about Stephen King’s books, there is always something about them that stays in your mind long after reading them. Even if it’s something very insignificant like Dolores telling a police officer about hanging sheets on the washing line. (I did not go back to the book to check that memory – if I did not get it quite right, please remember this is how I remember it ten years after reading the book.)
