In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years. Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi that her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.
bn.com
Delores Price, enduring a life filled with unlucky accidents, random acts of abuse, and a rape at the age of 13, grows into an obese woman with a gutsy manner. Lamb's skillful hand makes this first novel a memorable audiobook. Read by Kathy Najimy.
BUST Magazine
I was impressed and incredulous that this exquisitely nuanced ode to the living hell that is one woman's puberty was written by a man [gasp]. His stunningly drawn portrait of the scarred, misterable and oft-times gastronomically challenged Dolores seduces the reader into acknowledging some of the very reasons we don't always enjoy being a girl.
Hilma Wolitzer
She's Come Undone, an ambitious, often stirring and hilarious book. . . . Despite its strong story line, the book's suspense depends more on emotions than events, and its pleasures lie primarily in its lively narrative style and biting humor. --New York Times
Library Journal
An award-winning creative writing teacher has created a compelling first novel whose heroine reflects on her troubled journey from childhood to middle age. Bruised by her parents' divorce, her mother's breakdown, and brutal betrayal by a neighbor, Dolores Price tries to retreat from life. Overwhelming anger and defiance frequently blind her to the needs of others, yet even in despair she battles for love and acceptance, supported by some delightfully unconventional friends. There are no simple solutions, but from the shattered remains of her dysfunctional family, she binds together a new beginning. Her struggles to understand pain and achieve forgiveness resonate with a sense of life's complexities. Dolores is not always likable, but her story combines sorrow and wonder in a remarkable way. -- Jan Blodgett, St. Mary's City Records Center & Archives, Leonardtown, Maryland
Kirkus Reviews
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 their son is stillborn, 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 Roberta, empress of the Peacock Tattoo Emporium across the street. In spite of the strangled but loyal love of Ma and Grandma, the palship of Roberta, and the kindness of a gentle gay guidance counselor, 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 babybut also of Bernice, who's killed by a car. At a Pennsylvania college, Dolores knows that her destiny is to 'kill what people love.' 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 barrelsthroughwith a killer mouth and the guts of a sea lion. A warmblooded, enveloping tale of survival, done up loose and cheering.
From the Publisher
Glamour A heroine to cheer for....This supremely touching journey to adulthood may remind you of The World According to Garp and other sagas of emotional liberation.People There are at least two surprises in store for readers of Lamb's memorable debut novel. One is the author's sex. This male writes so convincingly in the voice of a female, tracing her life from 4 to 40, that you have to keep looking back at the jacket picture just to make sure. The second surprise is how such a string of trials and tribulations can add up to such a touchingly funny book...
The New York Times An ambitious, often stirring and hilarious book.
Read More