Dolores Claiborne

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The novel is written atypically for King, with no chapters, double-spacing between paragraphs, or other section breaks; the text is a single continuous narrative that reads like the transcription of a spoken monologue, written entirely in the first person in a local dialect. The narrative is a transcript of Dolores Claiborne's statement to the local constable and a stenographer. Dolores wants to make clear she did not kill Vera, whom she had looked after for years, but does confess to orchestrating the death of her husband, Joe St. George, almost 30 years previously. The novel introduces the fictional community of Little Tall Island, which King later used as the setting for the original TV mini-series *Storm of the Century*. It was the best-selling novel of 1992 in the United States.

In Their Own Story

Dolores first describes the arrival of Vera and her millionaire husband, who bought a summer home on Little Tall Island in 1949. Dolores takes a job as a maid, then becomes housekeeper. After Vera's husband dies in a car crash in 1960, Vera moves to the island permanently. Vera suffers a series of strokes in the 1980s, and Dolores becomes her live-in caretaker. Dolores reveals her marriage to Joe was already in difficulties due to his alcoholism and abuse. In 1960, Joe hits Dolores in the back with a piece of stove wood; she retaliates by smashing a ceramic jug over his head and threatening him with a hatchet. In 1962, Dolores learns Joe has molested their daughter Selena. Dolores resolves to leave Joe but discovers he has stolen her savings. Vera casually remarks that men like Joe often die in accidents, and implies she arranged her own husband's car crash. During a total solar eclipse, Dolores tricks Joe into stepping on rotted boards covering a dried-up well. He falls in, and after he nearly climbs out, Dolores hits him in the face with a rock, killing him. His death is ruled an accident. The narrative arrives at Vera's death: during a hallucination, Vera leaves her wheelchair and falls down a flight of stairs. Still alive, Vera begs Dolores to help end her suffering. Dolores fetches a rolling pin, but Vera dies before she can use it. Dolores inherits Vera's entire fortune—nearly $30 million—and realizes the only way to clear her name is to confess everything. Newspaper articles reveal Dolores was cleared of any blame and anonymously donated the fortune to the New England Home for Little Wanderers. A final article implies Dolores and Selena have reconciled.

Reader's Guide

The novel's protagonist is Dolores Claiborne, a 65-year-old housekeeper. Vera Donovan is her employer, described as 'a high-riding bitch' with a fanatical devotion to household procedures. Joe St. George is Dolores's abusive, inconsistently employed, racist husband. Their children are Selena St. George, who becomes a well-known journalist but struggles with alcoholism; Joe St. George Jr., who becomes a state senator in Maine; and Pete St. George, the youngest son. The novel led to a 1995 movie adaptation starring Kathy Bates that *Time* named among the top 10 greatest Stephen King film adaptations in 2013. A two-act opera adaptation premiered in San Francisco in 2013. The only clearly supernatural events in the book are two telepathic visions of a nameless young girl sexually victimized by her father, which, along with the solar eclipse backdrop, form a link to King's novel *Gerald's Game*.

Did You Know?

• The novel is written as a single continuous narrative with no chapters, double-spacing between paragraphs, or other section breaks.
• It was the best-selling novel of 1992 in the United States.
• The fictional community of Little Tall Island was later used as the setting for King's original TV mini-series *Storm of the Century*.
• A two-act opera adaptation of the novel premiered in San Francisco in 2013.
• The novel contains two telepathic visions that form a link to King's novel *Gerald's Game*.