# The Doloriad

The Doloriad is a 2022 novel by English novelist, playwright and editor Missouri Williams. The novel was Williams's debut novel.
It received the Republic of Consciousness Prize for 2022.

## Plot synopsis

The novel begins by introducing a desolate, post-apocalyptic world where an unexplained catastrophic event has decimated humanity. The story focuses on a matriarchal family living in isolation within the decay of the world. The Matriarch, a powerful and authoritarian figure, leads this ragged group of survivors, along with her brother ("The Uncle") and her children. The family resides in a makeshift, deteriorating structure, exposed to the elements and threats from outside.
The family members struggle to survive amidst scarce resources and harsh conditions. The Matriarch enforces strict rules to maintain order and ensure their survival, including strange rituals, incest and violent reprimands. The children, particularly the twins Dolores and her unnamed brother, are curious about the world beyond their immediate surroundings but are kept under tight control. They increasingly attempt to venture beyond their confined boundaries, and are harshly reprimanded for it. The children watch tapes of an old TV show about saint Thomas Aquinas, where the saint engages with various moral and ethical dilemmas.
At first the novel features no central character, instead approaching everyone in a mythological distant view. Dolores slowly becomes a central character as events progress. Her curiosity and yearning for understanding set her apart from the others. She shares a complex relationship with her brother and the rest of the family, filled with both affection and tension. As Dolores' expressed compassion grows, Pa (the Matriarchs son) and the father of the twins, begins to display more evident resentment and hostility towards the structural rule of his mother. This creates conflict within the hierarchy, resulting in the Matriarch furthering her growing violence and control.
The Matriarch has a dream about a nearby group of survivors. She decides to send the legless Dolores out on a journey to find and treat with this group of survivors. Throughout the introduction and Dolores' journey, the past of characters is shown through flashbacks, revealing how they came to be under the Matriarch's control and in their respective social roles. These flashbacks illustrate aspects of the pre-disaster world, indicating the setting to be somewhere in Eastern Europe, possibly the Czech Republic. It does not provide an explanation of the cause of the cataclysm.
Dolores returns from her journey and illustrates that the Matriarch's explanation of their situation, and the world around them, has not been entirely truthful. Dolores has seen proof that there are more stable and thriving communities beyond their immediate surroundings, and the harsh, totalitarian methods of their group are not necessary.
The final portion of the novel deals with the growing resentment and schism within the family. Pa's resentment boils over into a violent outburst towards the Matriarch, which puts the group in danger from outside threats. The fate of the family is left unknown in the wake of extreme violence from within, but ends on an optimistic note that Dolores' journey has offered them a new path forward.

## Background

The novel was developed out of Williams dealing with the aftermath of a series of temporal lobe seizures. Through attempting to regain focus of her communication through long, winding sentences, the style of The Doloriad emerged.
Williams states she did not intend necessarily to write a novel. She had previously published a number of short stories and essays in notable outlets such as Granta, The Baffler, and The New York Times.

## Style

Williams's novel has been described as horror fiction, science fiction, speculative fiction and literary fiction in various outlets. In an interview with Bookforum, she stated that while she has a love of science fiction, she "wants no part of that" with her own writing.
Williams's writing style has drawn positive comparisons to writers such as William Faulkner for its dense, lyrical quality, Cormac McCarthy for its Biblical and raw quality, Ottessa Moshfegh for its depravity and discomfort, and László Krasznahorkai for its surrealism and complexity.
More generally, some reviews have compared her style to the theatrical absurdity of Shakespeare

## Reception

The novel received generally positive reviews. Publishers Weekly noted that it would be a "love it or hate it" kind of novel, but that Williams' lyrical and visceral prose makes for a captivating read.
Some reviewers, while praising the novel's overall effectiveness, expressed criticism of its sometimes oppressive language style. In Kirkus, they said: "This novel awes on the sentence level but ultimately bludgeons the reader with the brutality of its larger vision."
The Doloriad was included in the end of year "Best Books" lists for the Sunday Times and Vulture. It was shortlisted for the First Novelist Award by Virginia Commonwealth University.