She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

This month's Book Club pick is She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. For those of you who will be attending June's Book Club with me, read no further. For everyone else: I can't help but talk about this book without talking about the end - and since I liked it so very much, I suggest you go read it first, then read the stuff below and then lambaste me.

A couple of things to get out the way before I get to the meat-and-potatoes of the review:
a) I can't say the title, or even see the book, without singing the song.
b) I can't sing the song without thinking of all the barely-concealed allegories in the book.

So, as a certain professor once told me, I'm going to be ingenuous base my entire review on excerpts from Guess Who's Undun.

She didn't know what she was headed for / And when I found what she was headed for / It was too late
The entire novel revolves around Dolores Price and her quest to find her life. Her idea of "life" changes from one moment to the next, but she's always hunting for it. Her self-destructive path begins early, when Dolores is tickled by Jack Speight; the reader - you and me and even narrator-Dolores - feel so uncomfortable, we can't help but think "oh, God, we know where this is going". The lyrics say "she" didn't know but when "I" found out: it's almost as if Narrator Dolores is talking, saying how her 13-year-old self didn't know where she was headed (in that car, to the dogs) and when the narrator finally clues in, it's too late to stop the events unfolding. After that breaking point, the novel is definitely fractured into two voices: the all-knowing narrator-Dolores and the second-guessing whale-Dolores, the latter of whom beaches herself in front of a TV and wills herself to die through gluttony.

It's too late / She's gone too far / She's lost the sun
A little more ambiguous, though it's in Cape Cod (amidst beached whales and thunder storms) that Dolores finally cracks up.

She wanted truth but all she got was lies / Came the time to realize / And it was too late
A recurring theme in the book: Dolores is constantly led astray by lies, either well-meaning or otherwise. Dottie's offers of friendship that turned out to be nothing more than sex; Kippy's letters that portrayed her as a sympathetic soul and disguised her true nature; Dante's promises of love. The few people who offer Dolores 'truth' (Dr. Shaw, Roberta, Thayer) are rebuffed repeatedly (and often successfully). Dolores wants the truth, but she finds lies much easier to handle.

Too many mountains, and not enough stairs to climb
We know that nothing good can come of Dolores meeting Dante (I mean, this is not a book of fairy tales); but if you needed any proof to substantiate your intuition, it's in the lyrics: the house that she and Dante share is on top of a mountain that was far too high. By the time now-skinny-Dolores allows herself to heed narrator-Dolores's warnings about Dante, it's too late to stop the truth from hurting her. Even though she makes it to the top of the mountain, she finds out (too late) that she can't fly. These mountains are everywhere in Dolores' life (Heeton Hall, Mrs. Wing's House...) and like the whale she pictures herself being, she is out of place and out of context.

Too many churches and not enough truth
The parochial school is a classic example of teaching without learning; the only things Dolores seems to learn at this school is how to hate and become invisible. She doesn't believe in the institution (school, Church, anything) and therefore gets nothing out of them - not even the comfort her Grandmother found in her saints.

Too many people and not enough eyes to see
The "eye" imagery is so prevalent throughout the novel, it's hard not to write a dissertation on just this topic: the TV acts as Dolores' eye to the world (a make-believe Walton world, but the world nonetheless); the dead-eye of the beached whale that begins Dolores' journey back from the brink; the blind eyes of Mr. Pucci who is the only person who ever sees Dolores for who she really is... I could go on and on. Many many people flit through Dolores' life (some stay longer than others), but only one really pushed her beyond the boundaries she establishes for herself.

Too many lives to lead and not enough time
Dolores could have been:
- Jack Speight's silent victim
- her mother's guilty conscience
- Dottie's lover
- Dr. Shaw's guinea pig and surrogate child
- Fred Burden's girlfriend, developing other people photos (lives?)
- her grandmother's pious grand-daughter
- Dante's bitch
- Roberta's caretaker
- Mr. Pucci's comfort
- Thayer's disappointment/heartache
... in her 33 years (a more loaded age couldn't exist in the Western literary canon), she has assumed these roles and shed them and resumed some again. Hers is a life in constant flux. When Dolores exclaims: "I saw her! I saw!" we have to wonder who it is she really saw. The whale? obviously. But also: her mother? her grandmother? herself? and if herself, which self? whale-Dolores? clever-Dolores? 13-year-old Dolores? narrator-Dolores?


Wally Lamb has been criticised for his (in)ability to write in an authentic female voice. I forgot that a man was even writing; for me, Dolores was as real (and as human) as they get. It's obvious there's so much more to discuss about this novel than is appropriate for a blog review - there's easily a term paper or two on just the imagery alone. I can't wait to see what the Book Clubbers picked up on that I completely missed.