Book review: She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb (1998)
“Mine is a story of craving; an unreliable account of lusts and troubles that began, somehow, in 1956 on the day our free television was delivered.”
Meet Dolores Price, quick-witted and vulnerable, whose life we follow through till she is forty years of age. When we first meet Dolores in 1956, she is four years old, innocently unaware that the delivery of a free television set will initiate her turbulent coming-of-age odyssey.
She spends the next few years, beached like a whale in front of her television, bingeing on junk food of all sorts, from potato chips to Pepsi. Dolores eats in an attempt to understand the many faces of love and betrayal: her father, driven by lust and longing to leave his family; her mother, an emotionally fragile woman who descends into mental illness; her grandmother, aching with unspoken feelings; and Jack Speight, the handsome neighbour who lives upstairs and whose ultimate betrayal will throw Dolores’ life nearly permanently off-course.
When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is neither emotionally nor physically strong. Nevertheless, her determination to rise above and conquer the situation shines through.
Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with an intriguing, heartbreakingly comical heroine who will keep your fingers glued to the pages, yearning for more. Dolores is as agonisingly real as our own imperfections.
She’s Come Undone makes us giggle and cringe and reminds us that despite the pain we endure and cause, we must find the courage to love again.
Teri Glass