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Cavedweller
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Binding: Hardcover
Label: Dutton
Manufacturer: Dutton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 434
Publication Date: March 01, 1998
Publisher: Dutton
Studio: Dutton
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Editorial Review:
"Death changes everything." So begins Dorothy Allison's sprawling, ambitious, and deeply satisfying second novel, Cavedweller. For Delia Byrd, Randall Pritchard's death in a motorcycle accident launches a journey of several thousand miles and almost two decades, a rebirth of sorts that's also a return to her roots. Years before, the handsome but untrustworthy rock star Randall helped Delia flee an abusive husband; Delia escapes physical danger but leaves her two small children behind. In California, her abandoned daughters haunt her dreams and preoccupy her waking hours, even as she sings in Randall's band and gives birth to another daughter, Cissy. But when Randall is killed in a motorcycle accident, Delia packs rebellious Cissy into a broken-down Datsun, bound for Cayro, Georgia, and the one thing that suddenly matters more than anything else: her abandoned children and the chance to be a mother to them once again.
Cayro's poverty is emotional as well as material; the town is a hard place, full of hard people. To them, Delia will always be "that bitch" who abandoned her babies, "that hippie" living a life of sin. Nonetheless, Delia forges a cruel bargain with her former husband: in exchange for Delia's agreeing to care for him as he dies, he gives her a chance to reclaim her daughters. Like Bastard out of Carolina, Allison's acclaimed debut novel, Cavedweller is a chronicle of rage, strength, and survival. Here, however, Allison is equally concerned with the redemptive power of love and forgiveness, and a novel that began with death ends on an unexpectedly sanguine note: "'Yes, it's time for some new songs.'" There are no victims in Dorothy Allison's work; Delia triumphs through sheer force of will, bringing her family together despite the contempt of almost everyone around her.
The novel has its flaws--including occasionally flat-footed prose--but it is in the end compulsively readable, and it's populated by some of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: tough, prickly, flawed, and deeply human, Delia and Cissy are literary creations of the first rank. In describing the complicated emotions that bind and divide them, Allison demonstrates a profoundly unsentimental understanding of the way the human heart works. Cavedweller is the work of a mature artist, her best fiction to date.
A lush, epic novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Bastard Out of Carolina.
When Delia Byrd packs up her old Datsun and her daughter Cissy and gets on the Santa Monica Freeway heading south and east, she is leaving everything she has known for ten years: the tinsel glitter of the rock 'n' roll world; her dreams of singing and songwriting; and a life lived on credit cards and whiskey with a man who made promises he couldn't keep. Delia Byrd is going back to Cayro, Georgia, to reclaim her life--and the two daughters she left behind...
Told in the incantatory voice of one of America's most eloquent storytellers, Cavedweller is a sweeping novel of the human spirit, the lost and hidden recesses of the heart, and the place where violence and redemption intersect.
"Luminous. Unabashedly emotional. Pays close attention to the way women get by, the way they come to forgive one another, the way they choose who they will be. Might have been written by George Elliot, had she ever passed through the shockwaves of rock-n-roll." --The New York Times Book Review
"Rich and involving...Its generous vision of the world stays with you." -Newsweek
"With the yarn-spinning rhythm of old Southern legends. An epic novel full of sweet-dream fever." --Boston Globe
"Spectacular. Sensual. Allison has a spare gospel-tinged lyricism that few can match." --New York Newsday
"Hooks the reader on the first page." -Time
"Its narrative takes you over without your realizing it...the heartfelt urgency of what happens to whom carries you along." --Boston Globe
"A startling and powerful novel about a woman's painful salvation...well worth the time and the tears." --New York Post
"Brilliant. Funny, heartbreaking." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Introduces a new cast of indomitable women. Powerful. Sassy. Knowing. An extraordinary book." --Baltimore Sun
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Not impressed.
I am a first time reader of Dorothy Allison, and I was not at all impressed with this novel. I sort of struggled through it, forced myself to finish it.
The first thing I noticed was all the characters' personalities kind of melted together, the dialogue did not provide them with individual voices, poor character development. The girls as children spoke just the same as the adults - clearly not age appropriate language.
New characters continually appeared, which made me stumble. ... Read More
Rating: - blah
Bought this on a clearance rack and can now see why it hadn't sold. The characters were unexciting, and the story dragged on and on. I read 4 books while having this one unfinished on my night stand. I've never read any of Allison's other novels, but after reading this one, I don't think I'll jump on the chance. Dede was the most interesting character, and even she couldn't keep me involved.
Rating:  - Let's get to the Point of this Book...
Another "Top of the list". The first 50-75 pgs were a little slow, but then I didn't want to put it down!
The way the story weaves the lives of Mom and daughter, leaving the life they knew in CA behind, to search the two daughters left behind in GA... is sad, intriguing, cryptic and dynamic all in one!
Recommended, just to see how the lives of the women of Cayro, Georgia come out on Top, together!!
Rating:  - Meandering yet heartfelt (and recognizably "real") group portrait of a mother and her three daughters
"Caveweller," Dorothy Allison's second novel, is nearly overwhelmed by the number of stories it relates. Yet somehow Allison holds everything together in this deeply collective portrait of a mother and her three daughters and the often troubled, sometimes impoverished lives they lead.
The novel has the feel of a multigenerational saga, but its span is barely a decade (with a few flashbacks to an earlier era). A trilogy of sorts, the book presents a series of interrelated family crises; its ... Read More
Rating: - Don't waste your time on this book
Ugh! This book was a gift, so of course I read it. Don't waste your time! I read it a year ago and it still sticks in my head as one of the worst books I have read in quite some time.
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