Thread: Dolores Claiborne – a popular thriller

Dolores Claiborne is a popular thriller/crime novel by Stephen King. It was released in the year, 1992 and was the best selling novel of the year in the United States of America.

Dolores Claiborne is narrated by the titular character. Unlike any other novel by Stephen king it has no chapters or other section breaks like a double-spacing between paragraphs. Hence as a result the text becomes a single continuous narrative that is to be read like a transcription of a spoken monologue.

At the beginning of the novel, the titular character Dolores Claiborne is being interrogated by the police. During the interrogation Dolores Claiborne is seemingly bent on making a fact clear to the police. She wants the police to understand that she did not have anything to do with the killing of her wealthy employer. The employer was an elderly woman who was named Vera Donovan. Vera was looked after by Dolores Claiborne for years.

She never accepts the charge of murdering her employer but she does, however, confess to the indirect murder of her husband, Joe St. George which happened almost 30 years before the time in which the novel is set. The "confession" that Dolores Claiborne makes soon gets developed into another story altogether. The story is about her life and it also includes her troubled marriage. Also the story brings into focus the relationship she shared with her employer.

Unlike most other works written by Stephen King, there is a little focus on the supernatural event. The only supernatural event that occurs in the book is a psychic vision experienced by one of the characters.


Like most of the works by Stephen king, the book has been adapted into a film which was received well by critics and audiences alike.

Will read it when it will be available & have time.