'She's Come Undone' by Wally Lamb

She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb (2)

Notes on the cover of this book mention ‘a touching journey’, ‘a heroine to cheer for’, and ‘an often stirring and hilarious book’.  My trouble with those accolades is that I had a hard time seeing any of it through the dark blanket of depression stifling the book.  The main character, Dolores, comes undone throughout the entire story.  It is the story of her childhood and coming of age filled with rape, bullying, abandonment, and death.  I think my main problem is that there are very good books that deal with these issues (such as ‘Push’ and ‘Lucky’), but they are clear about the depth of the subject and their darkness is obvious.  This book seemed to try to straddle the dark with humor and it felt mildly uncomfortable to me, as if it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.  The gender of the author was not brought to my attention until I was done with the book. Oddly, given the high praise for a male author writing such a personal emotional story from a woman’s view, I have to wonder if that is why I felt such conflict, like a man in woman’s clothing?