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| Edition: | Pocket Books (Mass Market Paperback) |
| Author: | Wally Lamb |
| Published: | June 1998 |
| Pages: | 480 |
| ISBN 10: | 0671021001 |
| New: | $3.44 (59) |
| Used: | $0.01 (1515) |
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She's Come Undone is a 1992 novel by Wally Lamb which was widely read after being chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection in January 1997.
Plot summary
She's Come Undone explores a feisty but troubled young woman's journey through her suburban New England existence. The novel opens with four-year-old Dolores Price, encountering a television set for the first time. Her father, Anthony (called Tony), hopes that it will distract her mother, Bernice, from her suspicions of his infidelity and distract Dolores from her parents' constant fighting.
Dolores' mother, Bernice, is devastated when her baby, Anthony Jr., dies at birth. Bernice falls into a deep depression and Tony becomes unable to cope with her. They divorce. Bernice suffers a mental breakdown and Dolores is sent to live with her Grandmother Holland in Easterly, Rhode Island. After Bernice is released from a mental hospital, she moves into the house with her mother and Dolores. Bernice finds work as a toll booth collector, dyes her hair platinum blonde and begins dating several men. For the first time since the beginning of the novel, Bernice appears happy and begs her daughter not to let herself become "trapped by other people's expectations".
At 13, Dolores attends a parochial school, where she has no friends. Her only joy in life is watching her soaps until a "hip" modern couple, Jack and Rita Speight, become her grandmother's new tenants. Both Dolores and Bernice soon develop a crush on Jack. Jack begins to give Dolores attention, especially when he confides that Rita is pregnant, and Dolores' adolescent romantic and sexual fantasies revolve around him. Her world is shattered when Jack picks her up after school only to drive her to a secluded location and rape her. Shortly after, Rita miscarries, compounding Dolores' fear and guilt about the rape. When Dolores finally confesses what has happened, Bernice decides not to press charges and only demands that Jack and Rita leave immediately, so that Dolores can forget.
Bernice, guilty for failing to protect her daughter, allows Dolores to skip school and stay home to watch television. Dolores uses food to comfort herself, so that by the time she is a high school senior, she weighs more than 250 lbs. In spite of Dolores' angry refusal to go to college, her guidance counselor, Mr. Pucci, petitions to let Dolores graduate, and Bernice fills out college applications until Dolores is accepted by the fictional Merton College. Still Dolores refuses to attend college, culminating in a shouting match with Bernice. Immediately after their fight, Bernice is killed by a sleeping truck driver when she steps out of her tollbooth. In a fit of guilt and remorse, Dolores decides to go to Merton.
By accident, Dolores arrives at Merton a week early. With nowhere else to go, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with Dottie, a cleaning woman who sees them both as allies because they are both fat. Dottie allows her to hide in the dorms until the start of class. Since Dottie shelters her, brings her food, and does not make fun of her weight, Dolores begins to see her as a friend. Later, Dolores is horrified at rumors that Dottie is a lesbian and breaks off the friendship in order to seem normal.
Dolores' roommate Kippy, a pretty, peppy girl, is immediately disgusted by Dolores. Dolores, desperate to prove herself "normal" for Kippy, allows herself to become Kippy's errand girl, even as Kippy mocks her behind her back. Dolores becomes obsessed with Kippy's high school boyfriend Dante. As Dolores bears witness to Kippy being unfaithful to Dante, she begins stealing Dante's letters and reading them in private, eventually concluding that she has found someone to love: someone emotionally vulnerable, just like her.
During a Halloween party, some frat boys and several girls in Dolores' dorm publicly humiliate Dolores while the boys grope her and make lewd comments. Dolores escapes the scene by screaming and kicking an attacker in the groin, only to realize that the only person she knows in Pennsylvania is Dottie. Dottie invites her to stay the night, and the two women indulge in dramatic binge eating and drinking. While intoxicated, Dolores allows Dottie to have sex with her.
In the morning, repulsed by what she has done, she leaves before Dottie awakes and convinces a cab driver to take her on a days-long road trip from Pennsylvania to Cape Cod, where several whales have been found dead at the shore. Feeling a connection between herself and the large animals, she begins her long journey. Once she arrives in Wellfleet, she attempts suicide by throwing herself in the ocean. After she is rescued, her mother's childhood friend becomes her benefactor and pays for her to be treated in a private mental hospital.
Dolores spends seven years in the hospital. When her psychiatrist, Dr. Shaw, teaches her about visualization, she uses this technique to lose weight by imagining her food covered with mold. Dr. Shaw is intrigued by Dolores' attraction to the sea and uses it in an unconventional rebirthing therapy at the hospital's pool in which Dr. Shaw uses hypnosis and the power of suggestion to help Dolores re-live her relationship with her mother. Through months of this therapy, Dolores is able to change her perspective on her mother and forgive herself for the tumultuous nature of their relationship and her treatment of her mother before her death.
After spending several months working at a photo-processing shop, Dolores is deemed healthy enough for life on her own and moves into a halfway house. During her work at the photo shop, Dolores stumbles upon photos of her ex-roommate Kippy's high school love, Dante, who is now a high school teacher in Vermont. Locating him in the phone book, Dolores moves to Vermont and takes an apartment in the same building as Dante, where she introduces herself to him, omitting everything about her parents, her former obesity, her lesbian encounter, the rape, the hospital, and her prior knowledge of him.
She and Dante become lovers, and Dolores becomes pregnant. Dante demands an abortion and Dolores, already having named the baby and thrilled with the news, is shocked, but chooses Dante over the unborn baby. To make up for the loss, Dante proposes marriage.
After their hasty wedding, Dolores decides that the marriage can be further cemented by purchasing a home of their own. She starts a secret savings account and amasses enough money for a down payment before telling Dante. Dante takes her bank book and uses the money to buy a van. After a cross-country trip that depletes the remainder of Dolores' funds, Dante finally confesses he has been suspended on the suspicion he was conducting a sexual affair with one of his students. Shocked, but with faith in her husband, Dolores begins to work double shifts every day to keep the couple financially afloat and to build their savings again, only to catch Dante in their bed with the student who allegedly accused him. Dolores drives him out of the apartment.
A few weeks later, Dolores' grandmother dies unexpectedly, leaving Dolores alone again. An apologetic Dante accompanies Dolores to the funeral, but Dolores has finally realised their entire relationship is built on lies. Dolores confronts him with everything she has hidden over the years, and Dante, terrified, leaves again for good.
In the months that follow, Dolores strikes up yet another unlikely friendship with Roberta, the elderly, Polish-American tattoo artist whom Dolores befriended at the age of 13. Roberta now suffers from Parkinson's disease. Dolores also reconnects with her old high school guidance counselor Mr. Pucci and his dying long-time lover Gary. Roberta, Mr. Pucci, and his collection of gay friends become Dolores' surrogate family.
When she begins to take classes at a local community college, Dolores meets Thayer, a tall, heavy student in his 30s, who lives with his bi-racial teenage son, Jamel. Thayer immediately likes Dolores and proceeds to pursue her over several months but Dolores, still burned by her marriage to Dante, is hesitant. Instead of commitment, Dolores asks Thayer to help her have a "no strings attached" baby, but Thayer feels uncomfortable and walks out of Dolores's life. Mr. Pucci, himself dying of AIDS, begs Dolores to "take love" however it offers itself, giving her the courage to accept Thayer's marriage proposal. They begin an unconventional life, embracing Thayer's son, Roberta, Dolores' punk-rock classmate and her new baby, all under one roof.
Dolores gives up on having a baby after their latest round of IVF fails. As consolation, Thayer takes her on a trip back to Wellfleet, where she is gifted with the sight of her first live, free whale.
The book's title comes from the song "Undun" by The Guess Who on their album Canned Wheat.
