JOE ST. GEORGE: Joe is a chronically unemployed, drunken coward, a despicable man who sees nothing wrong with physically, sexually, and emotionally abusing his wife and children. Joe, a classic ne’er-do-well, is manipulated by his wife, Dolores Claiborne, into falling into an abandoned well. Although injured, he climbs out, only to have Dolores push him back down. He dies when struck by a large rock Dolores shoved down the well.
SELENA ST. GEORGE: Dolores’s daughter and eldest child, Selena is another victim of Joe St. George, who abused her mentally and sexually. Selena escapes further mistreatment at the hands of her father only because her mother killed him. Selena grows up to be a successful but troubled journalist in Manhattan. It is presumed that she still resides in New York City.
DR. JOHN MCAULIFFE: The medical examiner who investigates Joe St. George’s death, McAuliffe suspects that something was amiss. He questions Dolores closely about her activities on the day Joe died, but is unable to shake her story. McAuliffe reluctantly renders a finding of “death by misadventure” regarding Joe’s demise.
LITTLE TALL ISLAND: A tiny island off the coast of central Maine, Little Tall is the home of Dolores Claiborne and Vera Donovan.
DOLORES CLAIBORNE: ADAPTATIONS
Released in 1995, the R-rated film version of Dolores Claiborne starred Kathy Bates in the title role and was directed by Taylor Hackford. Bates, of course, won an Oscar for her portrayal of another King character, the demented Annie Wilkes in Misery. The movie also starred Jennifer Jason Leigh as Selena St. George and Christopher Plummer as Lt. John Mackey (Dr. John McAuliffe in the novel).
The 131-minute feature is a compelling yet strange reflection of the book—Tony Gilory’s screenplay focuses far more on Selena and Mackey/McAuliffe than does King’s novel. Selena returns to Little Tall Island to be at her mother’s side after Dolores is accused of murdering Vera Donovan. The estranged daughter has repressed the memory of her father’s abuse, but her ugly memories soon resurface due to her mother’s current problems.
Mackey, convinced that Dolores escaped justice thirty years before, returns, seeking vengeance. In the movie, Dolores does not confess to Joe’s murder; the viewer learns the facts via a series of flashbacks. Mackey brings Dolores up on charges, but Selena is able to convince the presiding magistrate of her mother’s innocence.
Kathy Bates brings Dolores to life, dominating the screen when allowed, and some key scenes from the novel—Vera’s death, the night Dolores stands up to Joe, the afternoon Dolores learns her spouse stole her savings, and Selena’s recounting of Joe’s molestation—are faithfully and powerfully rendered. Jennifer Jason Leigh gives yet another outstanding performance as a emotionally scarred survivor of her dysfunctional childhood. The script, however, focuses entirely too much on Selena and Mackey, diminishing the intense, powerful woman whom readers come to know so intimately in King’s book. The fact that Dolores, an outspoken, proud woman if there ever was one, does not speak in her own defense at her hearing is a perfect example of the movie’s conceptual flaws.
DOLORES CLAIBORNE: TRIVIA
• Little Tall Island, where Dolores Claiborne is set, is also the setting for the 1999 television miniseries Storm of the Century.
• The actress Frances Sternhagen, who appeared in such King film and television projects as Misery (1990) and Golden Years (1991), was the reader on the Dolores Claiborne audiobook, on which she gave a truly memorable performance.
• Atropos, a figure from Greek mythology mentioned in Dolores Claiborne, is also a character in Insomnia (1994).
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STORM OF THE CENTURY
(1999)
Promoted widely as Stephen King’s first “novel for television,” Storm of the Century was broadcast by ABC during the February sweeps period in 1999, and its massive screenplay was simultaneously published in trade paperback by Pocket Books. In a lengthy introduction, King relates the genesis of the story and provides fascinating background notes to the production. Former Wings TV sitcom star Tim Daly has the lead role as Mike Anderson, while Debrah Farentino plays his wife, Molly. Casey Siemaszko plays Mike’s able deputy, Alton “Hatch” Hatcher, and Jeffrey DeMunn (who also appears in the feature film version of The Green Mile, released later that same year) adds a lot of color as Robbie Beals. In the pivotal role of Linoge is Colm Feore.
As he had done so often in recent productions, King hand-picked the director for the massive, 35-million-dollar production that ran for six hours over three nights. He was Craig R. Baxley, a relatively unknown filmmaker of such exploitation movies as The Twilight Man (1996) and I Come in Peace (1990), starring Dolph Lundgren.
As we have with Golden Years (1991), Sleepwalkers (1992), and others, we must consider the TV miniseries as much a part of the Stephen King Universe as any work of prose. Indeed, it is a vital part of the universe and a very worthy addition to the canon of King’s work.
Storm of the Century is a story about community, no doubt about that. But it’s a disturbing tale of community, almost perverse in the pleasure it takes in depicting a group of people who come together to make an impossible decision. It also plays on a subject that became very familiar and dear to King in the 1990s: secrecy.
In his introduction to the published screenplay, King discusses the milieu of the narrative by drawing comparisons and contrasts between the self-sufficiency and isolation of small-town people in general, and island people in particular. There are similarities, of course. King grew up in a small town in Maine, so when he created ’Salem’s Lot, Castle Rock, and Derry, he knew what he was writing about.
But when he devised Little Tall Island, the setting for this story and for Dolores Claiborne (1993), he admits he was writing as “an outsider.” You’d never know it. What King has observed here is that, as insular and familial as small towns can be, they are positively cosmopolitan in comparison to island communities. The people of Little Tall Island are, as a group, descended from half a dozen families who first settled there. Thanks to matrimony and reproduction, it can be extrapolated that, in one sense or another, they are nearly all family to one another in some way.
Like a family, they keep each other’s secrets, no matter how great. They maintain this silence with the mainland world, certainly, but also with each other. Just as many families do not discuss the dark truths they have kept hidden, the entire community of Little Tall Island keeps their own counsel. They may know that one of their number, Peter Godsoe, imports marijuana, but they’ll never speak of it. They may be aware of who has slept with whom, and which local deaths might not have been accidental. However, they’ll not share that knowledge. Even in the company of others who are aware of them, such grave matters are not discussed.
Like the secret of Dolores Claiborne, some years previous to the events of Storm of the Century. And the truth about what really happened to those who “disappeared” in the storm.
There is an interesting parallel that can be drawn between this chronicle and another King creation, Needful Things (1991), which was billed as “the last Castle Rock story.” Comparing the two illustrates what King is expressing about island communities.
Like Storm, Needful Things relates the account of a community with horrible secrets; in both, an evil stranger comes to town with intimate knowledge of those guarded secrets and uses it to tear the town apart. Like Storm, at the center of the plotline is the town’s top lawman. But while the structure of the two narratives may seem quite similar at first, the differences set Storm of the Century apart as not merely its own entity, but one with a far more insidious nature.
In Needful Things, as in ’Salem’s Lot (1975), and on a much larger scale, The Stand (1978), there is a crisis that shatters the society, pitting residents against one another. The island village self-destructs, until an individual or individuals with the necessary moral strength makes a stand against the evil that has poisoned the populace and, to greater or lesser degrees depending on which story you examine … wins.
Good tr
iumphs over evil and, particularly, over chaos.
But in Storm of the Century, the island community is not splintered. It is too tightly woven to be torn asunder so simply. Instead, the neighborhood is drawn together to face the crisis, and to make a terrible decision: to face probable death at the hands of a profoundly evil creature, or to willingly give one of their children to that same demonic force. Any parent worthy of the job knows the only real decision.
But that isn’t really practical, is it? When the entire town must decide, and their lives are in jeopardy as well, how can we expect them to choose the life of someone else’s child over their own safety? Apparently we can’t, for the people of Little Tall Island vote, in a relatively orderly and traditional fashion, to give the demonic sorcerer Andre Linoge one of their children.
The chosen child? The son of our hero, Mike Anderson, the island’s constable. Linoge takes little Ralphie Anderson away to corrupt and raise as his own and transform into a being just like Linoge himself, and the town breathes a sigh of relief that it is done. Except for Mike and Molly Anderson, whose lives are destroyed by what their community has decided.
But just like the rest of the people on Little Tall, they keep the secret.
STORM OF THE CENTURY: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
MIKE ANDERSON: The constable of Little Tall Island and the owner of Anderson’s, the community’s general store, Mike has lived there all his life. When Andre Linoge comes to town and murders Martha Clarendon, Mike and his deputy, Alton “Hatch” Hatcher, are the ones who arrest him. Anderson is also one of the first to suspect that Linoge is not precisely human.
When Linoge has suitably terrified the town, caused the murder of several of its inhabitants, and stolen the minds of its children, it quickly becomes apparent that the monstrous being regards Mike as his main opposition. Finally, when Linoge presents the locals with his ultimatum—give up one of their children willingly to be trained by him and become what he is, in order to save all their lives—Mike is the sole opposing voice.
The fact that Molly Anderson, Mike’s wife, is willing to make a deal with Linoge, at the possible expense of their son, Ralphie, destroys the marriage in an instant. In due course, the worst happens, and Ralphie is indeed chosen. Linoge takes the boy away, and when Mike goes to stop him, the townspeople prevent him from doing so, in order to save themselves.
Not long thereafter, Mike leaves Molly and Little Tall Island forever. He takes to the road for a while, and ends up in San Francisco. There he goes back to school, and eventually becomes a federal marshal. It is on the streets of San Francisco that he sees Linoge and Ralphie again. Years have passed. His son is now a teenager, and doesn’t recognize his father.
In response to Mike’s approach, Ralphie hisses, revealing fangs just like Linoge’s. He has become something horrendous, something evil. Linoge has won. However, Mike Anderson isn’t a quitter. Now that he has seen Ralphie again, he knows his son is out there and that Linoge still lives, and as long as both are true, there is always the possibility that Mike will try to track them down.
ANDRE LINOGE: “I’ve lived a long time—thousands of years—but I’m not a god, nor am I one of the immortals.” Those are the words of Andre Linoge when he finally identifies himself and his desires to the people of Little Tall Island.
What he is, however, is not much clearer than that. It seems likely that he is related to creatures such as Randall Flagg of The Stand (1978), The Dark Tower series (1982–present), and The Eyes of the Dragon (1987). Linoge has a great many extraordinary abilities. To see the truth in the darkest corners of people’s thoughts, to control minds, to whisk people away to another dimension slightly out of sync with our own, to move objects with his mind, to change his appearance and mingle with the shadows: those are only a sampling of Linoge’s talents.
But powerful as he is, Linoge will die eventually. Since his mortality became apparent to him, he has attempted to find a human child he can transform and teach and make his own, a youngster he can mold to become what he is. At least once before he came to Little Tall—namely, on Roanoke Island, Virginia, in 1587—Linoge attempted to force a community of humans to provide him the heir he requires. It didn’t work then, and in retaliation he destroyed the entire population.
It should be noted that the word “Croaton,” which may be the name of an ancient city or something completely different, is associated with Linoge’s visits to any given place.
RALPH “RALPHIE” ANDERSON: The son of Mike and Molly Anderson, Ralphie seems, from the very beginning, to be afforded special attention by Linoge. When Ralphie is chosen to be handed over to the stranger, it does not seem an accident or whim. Years later, when he encounters his father again, Ralphie does not seem to recognize Mike. By then, Ralph Anderson has already begun to transform into whatever manner of being Andre Linoge is.
MOLLY ANDERSON: The town’s day-care provider, Molly is the wife of Mike Anderson and the mother of Ralph. When the question is put to her, rather than standing with her husband in defiance of Linoge, Molly agrees with the townspeople to risk a single child’s life to save them all. After Ralph is taken away by Linoge and Mike leaves her, Molly undergoes therapy and eventually marries Hatch. It is believed Molly still lives on Little Tall.
ROBBIE BEALS: The town manager, Robbie clashes with Mike Anderson a great deal over the initial treatment of the situation with Andre Linoge. Hated by his wife, Sandra, and father to bratty Don Beals, Robbie is not a very likeable man. He is tormented by Linoge’s knowledge that when Robbie’s mother was ailing, he put her in a disgusting rest home, and he was with a whore on the mainland when she died. According to Linoge, Robbie’s mother has become a cannibal now that she’s in hell, and she plans to eat him when he gets down there, over and over again, because that’s what hell is about: “repetition.”
Sandra Beals drowns herself seven years after the storm, though she leaves the word “Croaton” written on the boat she has taken out into the water. Apparently she was still haunted by Linoge or at least his memory.
It is presumed that Robbie and his son, Don, still live on Little Tall.
MARTHA CLARENDON: An innocent old woman, Martha Clarendon is Linoge’s first victim on Little Tall. He clubs her to death with his silver wolf’s-head cane. Her body is found by Davey Hopewell.
CAT WITHERS: An employee at Anderson’s General Store, Cat is impregnated by Billy Soames and doesn’t tell a soul, even Billy (because she knows he is cheating on her). Instead, she has the baby aborted on the mainland. Cat is eventually mesmerized by Linoge and his wolf’s-head cane and is influenced into beating Billy to death with the cane.
It is presumed that Cat still lives on Little Tall.
ALTON “HATCH” HATCHER: Mike Anderson’s deputy, Hatch and his wife, Melinda, have a daughter, Pippa, who is in Molly Anderson’s day care. Melinda works at Anderson’s. A year after the storm, Melinda dies of a heart attack, and eventually Hatch marries Molly Anderson. It is presumed that Hatch, Molly, and Pippa still live on Little Tall.
LITTLE TALL ISLAND: Located just across the reach from Machias on the coast of Maine, Little Tall Island is, nevertheless, a world away. The people there are descended from its original settlers, and the community knows how to keep secrets.
THE WOLF’S-HEAD CANE: Linoge’s cane seems to be either the source of his power or a significant outlet for it. The stick can appear and disappear at will, moves of its own accord, and mesmerizes humans, and its wolf’s-head both moves and hisses.
ROANOKE (1587): In 1587 the entire population of Roanoke Island, Virginia, disappeared. Their fate is a mystery, but according to Andre Linoge, he forced them all to take their own lives after they refused to provide him with an appropriate heir.
MACHIAS: A mainland town just across the water from Little Tall Island.
STORM OF THE CENTURY: TRIVIA
• In Storm of the Century, Robbie Beals makes specific reference to Dolores Claiborne, and the secrets the islanders have kept about her f
or years before the events of this story. This is another link solidifying the Stephen King Universe.
• Stephen King, in a cameo role, appears on Martha Clarendon’s television set while Andre Linoge sits and waits to be arrested.
• Though no mention of it is made in the dialogue, in the published script of Storm of the Century, King notes in passing that Catrina Withers is reading to the children from The Little Puppy, a book that the author notes was “a great favorite of Danny Torrance’s, once upon a time.” Danny Torrance, of course, is the little boy in The Shining (1977).
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THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON
(1999)
“The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. Trisha McFarland discovered this when she was nine years old.”
The Complete Stephen King Universe Page 26
