She's Come Undone...

There's a scene in the last few pages of this book in which the main character, Dolores, is riding in the car with her second husband after three years of being unable to conceive a child. Their marriage is strained and her husband insists on a vacation to help rejuvenate them. He turns on the radio in the car and the oldies station is playing "She's Come Undone" by the Guess Who. Her husband sings along with the opening lyrics to the song:

"She's come undone.

She didn't know what she was headed for

And when she found what she was headed for..." (462)

They notice the man in the car next to them singing along too and the three share a moment. Then Dolores simply pulls out her journal and writes the word "Undone."

I read this book in the days right before my junior year of college. Back then, my life was kind of undone too. I didn't know where I was headed or what was going to happen. That was the year my parent's divorced, the year I went to Africa, and also the year I met Aaron. When I wrote a few months ago about my last 10 years, I commented that 2006, the year I initially purchased and read this book, we the single-most life-changing year of my life thus far. And "Undone" is a great way to describe it.

I just finished reading this book again on Thursday night. 465 pages of the life of Dolores, from ages 4-40. She lays out the story and tells about the trials of her life, from being raped at age 13 to drowning her sorrows in food, ballooning to 260 pounds in high school before finally going to a mental institution for most of her 20s. She's married twice but has no children, though she had an abortion for her first husband who didn't want children. Her story could be described in a word as tragic. Yet, I don't think it is at it's core.

It is interesting because the story feels so believable, so raw. As if it were a memoir rather than a work of fiction. It was fascinating to share this journey with her, to feel like I was standing beside her, watching it all unfold. It pains me to feel like I can't write that way.

In the first part of the book, her childhood, Dolores mother is pregnant and goes to the hospital one day to have her baby. But instead of Dolores' father coming to pick her up from school that day, her Grandma came with news that

"There just wasn't a baby anymore and that was that." (11)

As that scene unfolded, I thought of my own mother. Losing her baby brother when she was around the same age as Dolores in the book (Dolores was 7). I feel like my family has focused a lot over the years on my grandparents losing their baby (true, and tragic, I can't even imagine) but little attention has been paid to how my mom felt, responded, reacted.

You learn in the book that the baby, Anthony Jr., got the cord wrapped around his neck and strangled himself during the birth. Different than the way my uncle died, but still tragic. Since the story is told from Dolores' perspective, you can get a first hand glimpse of what a child in the position was thinking. She hated being in her grandmother's care and was confused about a lot of things involving the baby's death. Later in her life she would call herself a baby killer and figured that she had something to do with Anthony Jr.'s death.

I've been trying to get my mom to let me help her write a memoir for a while. About how she ended up on a path of being co-dependent and how she overcame it. I even wrote the first few paragraphs for her. She said that around the time she lost her baby brother, she also lost her favorite uncle and both of her maternal grandparents. She learned at a young age that if she wasn't good enough, everyone that she loved would leave her. And so she worked hard to make sure that she always fit the role that everyone wanted her to play. And that's what I thought of when I read the first part of the book.

I liked the way, too, that the author used the popular colors to describe the decade Dolores was currently living in. At the start of Woodstock (1969) Grandma has clamshell wallpaper put into her hallway. In 1978, her friends Boomer and Paula put a down payment on a house and Paula debates on what color to get their wall to wall shag carpet in, she's leaning toward Avocado. In 1990 as they sit in the fertility doctor's office Dolores and her second husband discuss the color of the chairs and curtains -- Mauve -- and how it's supposed to be numbing.

I am at a completely different place than I was when I read this book 4 years ago. Then I might have called it tragic. Today I just call it real. I think the way Dolores life shifts is true, it's indicative of reality. We each go through seasons in our lives -- colors. I wore bike shorts to school in elementary school because that was stylish. Times change.

I've been enjoying going back and reading these books again. This one though, I think, has a special new place for me that it didn't before.