Wally Lamb's "She's Come Undone"

She’s come undone. The phrase brings the image of an unraveled woman, like a ball of yarn, to mind. That is exactly how I would describe the main character of Wally Lamb’s “She’s Come Undone”. Dolores Price’s unraveling begins when her father leaves and she and her mother move in with her grandmother. She spends the next few years finding comfort in junk food and TV. Dolores experiences traumatic events, relationships, and deaths early in her journey through life. In the midst of all of this she comes into womanhood at 257 pounds. Dolores Price is a character hard to forget.

One of the major points that Lamb brings to attention is that we all have imperfections that we must embrace, or they will tear us down, as he proves early in the life of Dolores. Once she reaches her peak weight, it becomes an attribute that consumes her. She has trouble making and keeping friends, and her insecurity about herself manifests into a hard-edged cynical attitude. Dolores seems to shut everyone out, and these introvert habits drag her even closer to hitting bottom. She begins to trust no one, and believe that no one is on her side. From this obstacle Lamb reminds us that well all need help from those around us from time to time, and of course we all need love. It is only when Dolores has professional help or finds caring friendships in people like Roberta, the tattoo artist across the street, that she has a reprieve from her inner demons.

Lamb also argues for the importance of the mother daughter relationship. Dolores and her mother do not have the very best relationship for most of the book. Lamb explains her poor mothering skills by introducing us to Dolores’ grandmother, who is a devote Christian, and is strictly against talking and/or promoting anything that might be considered immoral. Dolores’ mother keeps everything light and never tries too hard to have open, honest conversations with her daughter. Instead she tries to win her love by presenting her with little gifts of junk food, which ends up aiding in creating one of the major obstacles in Dolores’ life. Later, when she has worked through a lot of her issues, Dolores releases her feelings of blame toward the central women figures in her life when she realizes they were only trying to do what they thought was best for her. Her mother was only being the best mother she knew how to be.

I tried to think of shortcomings of this book, but I honestly can’t. The strongest point of “She’s Come Undone” was undoubtedly the author’s approach. It is unbelievable to think that this book was written completely from the female viewpoint by a man! Lamb writes so convincingly in the voice of a female. From age 4 to 40 I really felt like I was watching the life and hearing the insights of a female. Never does he go anywhere near the typical stereotypes of girlhood and womanhood. I was beyond impressed. Lamb reached into the emotions of a female and put them right on the page to entertain, and relate accurately to his audience.

This book proves that girlhood is an important stage in a female’s life, which is something that is often overlooked by society. Dolores Price’s life was not an easiy one. It got harder and harder with no reprieve, and she became the direct victim of everyone’s choices. What do you expect when after a fight with her father, Dolores’s mother notices that she is bleeding through her clothes (her daughter’s first experience with menstruation) and says, “That’s great Dolores. Thanks a lot. That’s Just what I need right now.” (p28) In events like this, and some even worse, Dolores often becomes the victim, and it is usually not her fault. She does not have strong support figures early on in life, and this causes her to have major difficulty later on. She does not know how to deal with hardship properly. In girlhood, outside influences play a major role in learning how to cope with how hard life is sometimes. It is a fragile time where major ideas, opinions, and behaviors are formed. The girlhood experience is crucial to the overall outcome of a female’s life.

There is a Dolores Price in all of us. Our imperfections tend to haut us every time we look in the mirror, whether it is weight, features to small or to big, or even genetics. Through Dolores, Wally Lamb shows us that we can all over come these so called “imperfections” and rise up above them. Our imperfections do not define us, and as Dolores discovered, and we all deserve the very best regardless of what we think is wrong with us on the outside. I know I will never forget Dolores Price.