A tremendously likable first novel about the catastrophe-marked
childhood, youth, and mangled adulthood of a tough-fibered woman
who almost beaches herself in guilt and grief. Terrible things are
about to happen to Dolores Price, only child of brittle, vulnerable
Bernice and weak, randomly abusive Tony. Tony leaves Bernice
sometime after the stillbirth of their son, and after a week
playing with little Dolores in a new backyard pool, when the child
expects a lifetime of floating with Daddy. Then Bernice completely
flips out and goes to a mental hospital; Dolores is taken to live
with Grandma in Rhode Island on Pierce Street (which "smelled of
car exhaust and frying food. Glass shattered, people screamed, kids
threw rocks"). Later, Ma returns and works collecting tolls on the
Newport Bridge, while friendless Dolores attends a corrosive
parochial school. But all welcome Grandma's new tenant, dazzling
Jack, a radio DJ who, when Dolores is 13, rapes her in a dog pound.
The person Dolores runs to is heart-of-gold Roberts, empress of the
Peacock Tattoo Emporium across the street. In spite of the
strangled but loyal love of Ma and Grandma, the palship of Roberts,
and the kindness of a gentle gay guidance-counsellor, Dolores is
about to go under. She becomes a mountain of fat, and soon is
convinced that she's responsible for the death of Jack's baby - but
also of Bernice, who's killed by a car. At a Pennsylvania college,
Dolores knows that her destiny is to "kill what people love."
There's some good psychiatry and a bad marriage before the peaceful
and upbeat close. Lamb has a broad satiric touch with some
satisfying fat targets (the warfare of Pierce Street, etc.). And in
spite of hard, hard times and crazy coincidences, Dolores' career
is a pleasure to follow, as she barrels through - with a killer
mouth and the guts of a sea lion. A warmblooded, enveloping tale of
survival, done up loose and cheering. (Kirkus Reviews)
Dolores Price is the wry and overweight, sensitive and pained, cynical heroine of this novel. The story follows her from four to 40, from her shattered family life through the hellish circles of sexual and food abuse to her gradual recovery and her fight to love again.
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