Femme Noir

There is a subtle and intriguing parallel that connects Misery to Dolores Claiborne: namely, the fact that both narratives subvert the expectations of the traditional detective story. On the one side, this chapter pairs Sheriff Buster with John MacAuliffe (Mackey in the film version of Dolores). With varying degrees of conformity and success, each agent of the law attempts to use his powers of deduction to solve a crime. Undoubtedly, Buster—because he trusts his gut and has a softer side—is King’s preferred model; MacAuliffe/Mackey remains entirely too driven, too singularly focused, and too self-involved to move closer to enlightenment; he relies too much on procedure and not enough on poetic intuition. Still, these detectives arrive at figurative and literal dead-ends for the same reason: they don’t see the hole in the ground until it is too late. In Claiborne, the eponymous heroine, like Paul, incorporates into herself the astute observation skills of the detective without, and this point remains crucial, forfeiting her capacity to evade the possessive gaze of male interrogators. Unlike the narrowness displayed by MacAuliffe/Mackey, she recognizes that both criminal and detective have blind spots, and instead of getting lost in a (futile) power struggle, or hoping in vain to escape from it, she understands the structure of the game that she is playing. By looking at these pairings—Buster/Mackey, Paul/Dolores—this chapter traces the outline of a good detective: detectives know from the start they will always lack mastery, and thus opt to pursue something other than blind dominance or control.