She followed Harry from London to Paris and then to America, planning all the way to free herself from him. As his business failed, she built one of her own, and managed to support her children, and eventually to leave Harry for a man she loved – a man who, nonetheless, raped one of her daughters repeatedly. Even with all her personal trials and the Depression raging around her, though, Dolly managed to keep her business going and her family provided for (if not always protected), until she was finally overtaken by old age.
DOLLY VARDON is a heartrending and powerful story, all the more so for being real. The careful and sympathetic portrait of Dolly does not mask her flaws, but shows the reader an honest picture of a strong and much-abused woman fighting for her place in the world and her right to choose her own path. What happens to her throughout her life (and in some cases, to her children) is heartbreaking, but does not take away her spirit or her capability. The author deftly compares her actions and her fate to those of the men who exploited her – while they wither into bankruptcy and/or death, she survived and went on, even through the worst of times.
It is, however, not a story for the sensitive, squeamish, or for survivors of abuse who don’t want to trigger painful memories. There are vivid descriptions of child rape and molestation in the book, retold in what some may consider to be unnecessary, almost prurient detail. The book shifts perspective oddly at times, too, switching from Dolly’s point of view to that of her daughter, or of the author, her grandson.
Though DOLLY VARDON is not a safe or comfortable read (particularly for those dealing with their own traumas), it is an interesting, valuable, and powerful life history that sheds light on some of the worst and darkest aspects of Victorian and early 20th-century culture in both Europe and America.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader