Dolores Claiborne

Starred review from October 27, 2008
King’s classic tale of murder and suspicion on Little Tall Island is certainly one of his finest to date, featuring one his most complex and compelling characters ever. With her smalltown tone and pitch perfect dialect, Frances Sternhagen delivers a remarkable reading that is at once intimate yet extroverted. Sternhagen’s Claiborne is an everyday woman who has had it with her everyday life. With an unrelenting delivery that only gets better as the story moves forward, Sternhagen speaks from the heart and never sounds forced or manufactured. She also makes all the surrounding characters (from Dolores’s damaged daughter to her steely boss and a suspicious detective) completely well-rounded and realistic. Sternhagen captures the very essence of what can turn a woman’s heart to hate and lets her audience feel it in their bones. Recorded in 1992 (three years before the Kathy Bates motion picture), this is the recording’s first release on CD. A Signet paperback.

November 29, 1993
King's portrait of a Maine housekeeper accused of her employer's murder--a nine-week PW bestseller--shows him to be a magnificent storyteller.

January 4, 1993
Described by the publisher as a companion piece to King's last book, Gerald's Game , this new novel surpasses it in every way, and shows that King, even without the trappings of horror and suspense, is a magnificent storyteller whose greatest strength has always been characterization. His sterling title character this time out is a Maine woman in her 60s who made a living as a housekeeper and now is under suspicion in the death of her senile employer, Vera Donovan, who fell down a flight of stairs. Did Dolores push her? Responding to the charges against her, Dolores recounts her life in a tightly woven narrative that is beguiling and touching at the appropriate moments. The friendship between these two lonely women ``livin' on a little chunk of rock off the Maine coast'' was the anchor of both their lives, and it soon becomes clear that Dolores didn't kill Vera. But she freely acknowledges--30 years after the fact--that she did kill her husband, Joe, during a solar eclipse on July 20, 1963, ``my day for seein' eyes everywhere.'' Presenting Dolores's story in her own remarkable colloquial voice, King brings readers face to face with a goodhearted, lovable woman whose honesty is ultimately unforgettable. 1.5 million first printing; BOMC main selection.