Dolores Claiborne
Published: November 1992
Genre: Drama, Fiction, Horror, Media Tie-In, Murder, Psychic, Psychological, Supernatural, Thriller
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Summary
Dolores Claiborne, a fiery 65-year-old widow living on the remote Maine island of Little Tall Island, is accused of murdering her wealthy, elderly boss, Vera Donovan.
The novel is presented in the form of a transcript of her statement, as told to the local policeman and a stenographer.
Dolores wants to make it obvious to the police that she did not murder Vera, whom she has cared for for years, but she does admit to organizing the killing of her husband, Joe St. George, nearly 30 years previously.
Dolores' confession evolves into a narrative about her life, her rocky marriage, and her connection with her boss.
She begins by describing her connection with her boss, which began in 1949, when Vera and her rich husband bought a summer home on Little Tall Island and recruited Dolores as a maid.
Dolores advances from maid to housekeeper in the Donovan mansion after proving her ability to meet Vera's ruthlessly rigorous standards.
After Vera's husband is killed in a vehicle accident in the late 1950s, she spends more and more time at her island home, eventually relocating there permanently.
Dolores becomes Vera's live-in carer and reluctant friend when she suffers a series of strokes in the 1980s.
Dolores consoles the affluent woman while she suffers from horrific hallucinations of an entity she refers to as "the dust bunnies."
Dolores combats Vera's developing mind tricks and power plays while she is conscious.
Dolores goes on to say that when she started working at the Donovan residence, her marriage to Joe St. George was already in trouble owing to his drunkenness and verbal and physical violence.
Selena, Joe Jr., and Pete, their children, are completely oblivious of the abuse.
Joe aggressively strikes Dolores in the small of her back with a piece of furnace wood after a minor transgression one night in 1960, escalating the marriage issues.
Dolores shatters a porcelain cream pot over his head in retribution and threatens him with a hatchet, claiming she would murder him if he ever assaults her again.
Selena, their adolescent daughter, is there throughout this altercation. Joe quits assaulting Dolores, and in an effort to preserve face, she lets him depart the island community.
Selena is unaware that Dolores was abused and was acting in self-defense, and Joe exploits the hatchet event to get sympathy from her. Between mother and daughter, a schism emerges.
Dolores sees Selena has grown increasingly reclusive, fearful, unsociable, and unconcerned about her looks in 1962.
Dolores confronts her daughter when they return home on the island boat, after assuming that she has met a boy or been engaged in drugs.
She confesses the truth about the hatchet event, and Selena, without her will, admits her father assaulted her.
Disheartened, Selena nearly jumps off the ship, but Dolores intervenes and calms her, promising to protect her.
That night, she considers murdering Joe, characterizing the need to do so as an "inner eye opening."
Instead, she confronts him, threatening to charge him if he ever approaches Selena again.
Dolores eventually decides to leave Joe in order to protect her children. When she seeks to withdraw funds from her children's savings accounts in order to support their escape, she realizes that Joe has taken all she has accumulated.
In despair, she bursts into tears at work, confiding in Vera. Vera, who is particularly compassionate, confesses that she has had some type of experience with Dolores' "inner eye," and casually notes that men like Joe frequently die in accidents, leaving their spouses little.
As she walks away, she suggests that she caused the vehicle accident that killed her own husband and tells Dolores that "occasionally, an accident may be an unhappy woman's greatest friend."
Dolores begins arranging Joe's assassination, but she does not find a chance to carry it out until the summer of 1963.
Vera gets preoccupied with a total solar eclipse that will be seen from the island, certain that it would persuade her estranged children to pay her a visit.
She intends to host a large observation party on the island ferry. Dolores sends Selena to camp while sending Joe Jr. and Pete on a vacation to meet family since she thinks the island will be relatively desolate at that time.
Dolores points out a dried-up stone well amid a clump of brambles on the outskirts of their land.
Vera feels depressed and lashes out at her hired help when it becomes evident that her children will not be joining her at this time, only to be calmed down when Dolores confronts her about the wrongful dismissal of one of the maids.
Dolores buys Joe a bottle of scotch and cooks him a sandwich on the day of the eclipse, making him inebriated and comfortable, and they have a moment of physical tenderness for the first time in many years.
Dolores gets a vision of a little girl in the line of the eclipse who is being sexually molested by her father at the same time the eclipse begins.
Reminding herself of her goal, she purposefully enrages Joe by pretending she has recovered the money he took, leading him to assault her.
She retreats into the brambles, fooling Joe into walking on the rotten planks that cover the well. The boards split, and he falls down the well, yet he is not killed instantaneously.
He cries out for rescue for a while before losing consciousness. Dolores returns home and promptly falls asleep.
She experiences a nightmare and then goes to the well. When she comes, Joe has recovered consciousness and is on the verge of climbing out.
He grabs Dolores and tries to drag her in with him. She smacked him in the face with a rock, and he died and fell back into the well.
Joe is reported missing by Dolores, and his body is discovered after several days of searching. Despite the local coroner's suspicions and speculations, Joe's death is declared an accident.
Dolores is no longer in Joe's clutches, but her actions have strained her connection with Selena, who believes her mother of murdering her father.
The narrative ultimately gets to the details of Vera's death, which prompted Dolores to recount her story.
She admits that during one of her hallucinations, Vera managed to escape her wheelchair and flee in horror from "the dust bunnies," going down a flight of steps.
Dolores gets a terrible vision of Joe's dust-covered ghost as Vera falls. Vera, who is still alive and cognizant despite her injuries, asks Dolores to let her end her pain.
Dolores goes to get a rolling pin for Vera, but she dies before she can use it. The damning scene is discovered by the local postmaster, who accuses Dolores of murdering the elderly lady and forces her to contact the cops.
Dolores is hounded and intimidated that night by members of the island community who believe she has previously evaded punishment for murder.
The following day, Dolores receives a phone call from Vera's lawyer, who informs her, much to her surprise, that she has inherited Vera's entire fortune—nearly $30 million.
Dolores first declines the money in favor of Vera's estranged children, but later discovers that they were killed in a car accident in 1961, and that Vera had spent the last 30 years of her life just believing they were still alive.
Dolores convinces herself that the money will be used as a reason for murder, further complicating the case against her, and that the only way to cleanse her name is to confess everything.
She concludes her remarks, finally at peace with herself. Several media pieces conclude the narrative by saying that Dolores was exonerated of any culpability in Vera's death and anonymously gave Vera's riches to the New England Home For Little Wanderers.
The conclusion hints that Dolores and Selena have reunited and that Selena will return home for the first time in 20 years.
Useful Search Related Words & Keywords
Charles Mulvehill, Christopher Plummer, David Strathairn, Eric Bogosian, Gerald Game, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John C. Reilly, Judy Parfitt, Kathy Bates, Little Tall, Main Character, Rose Madder, Tall Island, Taylor Hackford, Vera Donovan, Warner Bros
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