15 Stephen King stories ranked from heartwarming to horrifying

5. Dolores Claiborne

Dolores Claiborne is yet another Stephen King novel that has been adapted to film at least once. The 1992 work was quickly (for the film world, anyway) turned into a 1995 film of the same name, starring Kathy Bates.

But you won’t see Kathy Bates or her fictional counterpart battling unspeakable supernatural evil, however. Rather, Dolores Claiborne is a very ordinary woman caught up in a kind of evil that is no less horrifying for all of its mundanity.

The novel is narrated by Dolores as she is being interrogated regarding the death of Vera Donovan, her elderly and wealthy employer. While Vera reached Mr. Burns’ levels of deviousness in her lifetime, it’s true that Claiborne didn’t kill her. Instead, as she speaks, Dolores confesses to another crime: the murder of her abusive husband, Joe.

It’s not that we should feel bad for her deceased spouse. Joe St. George was little more than a hungry, unthinking beast. He was married to Dolores for 30 years before she found out that Joe had been molesting their teenaged daughter, Selena.

For Dolores, the path forward is clear: Joe has to go. After all, as Vera tells her: “Husbands do have accidents sometimes.” During a confrontation—set in the midst of a total solar eclipse—Dolores leads Joe to a well, where he falls in and dies a lingering death. It’s a grim end, but the reader can’t help but feel that it is entirely deserved.

The novel isn’t just the story of how a woman goes to brutal measures to escape her husband. It’s also a tale of her complicated relationship with Vera Donovan, a frankly nasty old woman that proves to hold her own surprises. Dolores Claiborne is dark, to be sure, but it’s a fascinating psychological thriller.