Rating: 
Summary: DISARMING CANDOR AND LYRICAL PROSE
Review:
Echoing the voices and revisiting the region of her starkly splendid debut novel, Bastard Out Of Carolina, Dorothy Allison sets her story of family, friendship, and redemption, Cavedweller, in rural Cayro, Georgia. This community with its myopic mores and entrenched culture is as much a part of her tale as the gritty, determined women who call it home.
With disarming candor and often lyrical prose Ms. Allison relates the story of Delia Byrd, who fled Cayro for Los Angeles a decade ago, running from an abusive husband, Clint Windsor, and leaving behind two baby daughters. Delia became the whiskey-voiced, whiskey dependent lead singer for a rock group called "Mud Dogs." When her second husband, guitarist for the group and father of her third daughter, Cissy, dies in a fiery motorcycle crash, Delia packs a few belongings plus her protesting daughter into an enfeebled Datsun and heads for home. Determined to stay sober and reunite her family, she drives cross-country "as if her sanity depended on it."
There are no welcome home signs in Cayro. Recognizing Delia, a diner cook announces, "You that bitch ran off and left her babies......don't think people don't remember....You the kind we remember." Her return is greeted with even less charity by the congregation of the Cayro Baptist Tabernacle, and Scripture quoting Grandma Windsor who has raised Delia's other two daughters: Amanda, 15, a hellfire and damnation religious zealot, and Dede, 12, a caustic cigarette smoking nymphet. Only M.T., "a big woman, muscular under soft pads of flesh" offers succor to "her lost best friend and the daughter at her side."
Desperate to reclaim her girls, Delia strikes a bargain with the cancer stricken Clint - she will care for him until his death in return for custody of their daughters. Thus, dysfunctional as it may be, they are a family again as Delia works herself into exhaustion, Amanda prays, Dede scorns, and Cissy forms a tenuous rapprochement with the dying man.
While the first half of this deftly crafted narrative focuses on Delia as she battles guilt, recrimination, poverty, and the urge to drink, the second portion belongs to Cissy. It is her coming-of-age tale, rendered with compassion and eloquence. Doubtless there will be parallels drawn between Cissy and Harper Lee's "Scout" in To Kill A Mockingbird. Cissy does not suffer by comparison. Viewing the world with a probative eye she searches hungrily for her identity.
When Cissy is introduced to the mysteries and challenges of spelunking, it is within the black recesses of Little Mouth cave that the young insomniac finds rest and a modicum of peace. "Looking up into the rock ceiling...she imagined she could hear gospel music in the darkness just outside of the light's little circle....she found herself thinking about God, the God who stacked rock on rock and watched after fatherless girls."
Ms. Allison draws her characters forcefully, with telling detail, etching them upon the reader's consciousness. Her description of Clint's final moments is surely one of the most memorable scenes in contemporary literature. Few describe a redneck with the hair trigger accuracy of this author, or more truly limn the evangelistic fervor of southern fundamentalists. Her depiction of enduring friendship, non-judgmental and patient, is tribute to both Ms. Allison's estimable skill as a wordsmith, and the generosity of the human heart.
Rather than the unrelenting cycle of poverty and oppression described in some of Ms. Allison's previous work, this novel ends on a hopeful note. "I wanted to write about people who could change," Ms. Allison has said. "You can create redemption for yourself." Cavedweller is unforgettable affirmation of her belief.
- Gail Cooke
Rating: 
Summary: Might Make a Good Movie
Review: After reading Bastard out of Carolina, Cavedweller was a big disappointment. The book is teeming with characters that leave you yearning for more--more information, more resolution, more anything! Nonetheless, I think it would be interesting to see it adapted to the big screen (not t.v. though as it would lend itself to the Lifetime Television for Women genre all too easily). On the big screen some of the more extraneous characters could fade into the background and there's a a lot to be done with the cave scenes. If a film were made, maybe I could finally say that I liked a movie better than the book it was based on!
Rating: 
Summary: A gifted story teller...
Review: Allison has once again given us a beautiful book, real, romantic, and exceptionally written. Delia Byrd needs to go home and she drags her ten year old daughter with her. This is really her story, the story of Cissy, living in the strange Cayro, GA, her mother's hometown. What greets them is Delia's reputation. She left her husband and her first two daughters, ran off with a rock star, and now returns to find bitterness and strong memories in the town's minds. Cissy is pulled along for the ride, at turns found curious and interesting, and other times looked on as a total outcast. This is her story of growing up and finding truth in the beauty parlor, in her mama's strange friends, and in the gift a boy gives her: the location of amazing caves. The writing is powerful and the story compelling. We are with Cissy every step of the way and we rejoice with her for her freedom and the security she finds underground. The novel becomes predictable only near the end and the outcome is quick and painless. I loved this book.
Rating:
Summary: DISARMING CANDOR AND LYRICAL PROSE
Review: Echoing the voices and revisiting the region of her starkly splendid debut novel, Bastard Out Of Carolina, Dorothy Allison sets her story of family, friendship, and redemption, Cavedweller, in rural Cayro, Georgia. This community with its myopic mores and entrenched culture is as much a part of her tale as the gritty, determined women who call it home. With disarming candor and often lyrical prose Ms. Allison relates the story of Delia Byrd, who fled Cayro for Los Angeles a decade ago, running from an abusive husband, Clint Windsor, and leaving behind two baby daughters. Delia became the whiskey-voiced, whiskey dependent lead singer for a rock group called "Mud Dogs." When her second husband, guitarist for the group and father of her third daughter, Cissy, dies in a fiery motorcycle crash, Delia packs a few belongings plus her protesting daughter into an enfeebled Datsun and heads for home. Determined to stay sober and reunite her family, she drives cross-country "as if her sanity depended on it."
There are no welcome home signs in Cayro. Recognizing Delia, a diner cook announces, "You that bitch ran off and left her babies......don't think people don't remember....You the kind we remember." Her return is greeted with even less charity by the congregation of the Cayro Baptist Tabernacle, and Scripture quoting Grandma Windsor who has raised Delia's other two daughters: Amanda, 15, a hellfire and damnation religious zealot, and Dede, 12, a caustic cigarette smoking nymphet. Only M.T., "a big woman, muscular under soft pads of flesh" offers succor to "her lost best friend and the daughter at her side." Desperate to reclaim her girls, Delia strikes a bargain with the cancer stricken Clint - she will care for him until his death in return for custody of their daughters. Thus, dysfunctional as it may be, they are a family again as Delia works herself into exhaustion, Amanda prays, Dede scorns, and Cissy forms a tenuous rapprochement with the dying man. While the first half of this deftly crafted narrative focuses on Delia as she battles guilt, recrimination, poverty, and the urge to drink, the second portion belongs to Cissy. It is her coming-of-age tale, rendered with compassion and eloquence. Doubtless there will be parallels drawn between Cissy and Harper Lee's "Scout" in To Kill A Mockingbird. Cissy does not suffer by comparison. Viewing the world with a probative eye she searches hungrily for her identity. When Cissy is introduced to the mysteries and challenges of spelunking, it is within the black recesses of Little Mouth cave that the young insomniac finds rest and a modicum of peace. "Looking up into the rock ceiling...she imagined she could hear gospel music in the darkness just outside of the light's little circle....she found herself thinking about God, the God who stacked rock on rock and watched after fatherless girls." Ms. Allison draws her characters forcefully, with telling detail, etching them upon the reader's consciousness. Her description of Clint's final moments is surely one of the most memorable scenes in contemporary literature. Few describe a redneck with the hair trigger accuracy of this author, or more truly limn the evangelistic fervor of southern fundamentalists. Her depiction of enduring friendship, non-judgmental and patient, is tribute to both Ms. Allison's estimable skill as a wordsmith, and the generosity of the human heart. Rather than the unrelenting cycle of poverty and oppression described in some of Ms. Allison's previous work, this novel ends on a hopeful note. "I wanted to write about people who could change," Ms. Allison has said. "You can create redemption for yourself." Cavedweller is unforgettable affirmation of her belief. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I avoided reading Bastard Out of Carolina for a long time as I had heard how emotionally intense a book it was. When I finally read it I agreed with what I had heard, and was engrossed and engaged and impressed and touched. I looked forward to Cavedweller, expecting another beautifully written book. But I was disappointed- there were alot of sloppy errors that did not allow me to suspend disbelief (no, it is not 3 am in California when it is midnight in Georgia), characters were explored and then dropped (who was the main character?) and the story meandered with no real point that I could make out. Too bad; I agree with other reviewers that this half-baked work needed more time and an editor.
Rating:
Summary: characters to cherish a message to heed
Review: I believe men will enjoy this allison novel although it does read like a woman's book. brings you in to your past and makes you think about your future.loved the characters. vivid and honest. great first novel for a mature teen.a bit generic but heartful.
Rating: 
Summary: in-between
Review: I felt so much more anticipation for Delia's growth than what the story offered. Actually, my hope for all the characters were left ungranted. They were interesting, but too defeated for my tastes. I guess that's real life. I did like how they stuck it out, through the mire. On the whole, it was a chore to read the book at times, and it didn't raise me from my lower self. This is my first D. Allison book --should I try bastard out of carolina?
Rating:
Summary: I Liked It
Review: I like it a lot. It doesn't have the same impact as "Bastard Out of Carolina" (the author's first novel - a modern classic), but it is thoroughly enjoyable. There are still elements that can be compared to "My Fractured Life" of the rockstar life style and the survival of abuse, but different elements than those that make "Bastard Out of Carolina" similar to "My Fractured Life." Still a great book and highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone thinks he knows zucchini
Review: The cavedweller of the story is the youngest daughter of Delia Byrd, Cissy. It comes to pass that Cissy sleeps bettter in caves than above ground. Having suffered an injury to one of her eyes as a child she is bothered by light anyhow, and does not fear the darkness. She feels safer below ground than in other circumstances. In the small town in Georgia to which her mother flees, after stopping drinking and the career as a singer she attained on the west coast, there are many people available to make Cissy feel uncomfortable. There is her mother's husband who is dying a difficult death. Actually she comes to feel something like a sort of love for Clint, something no one else feels at the time of his dying. There are her two sisters, Amanda and Dede, reunited with their mother, trying to get through their teen years and challenging the younger girl, and there are the people in the school and the town who ask Cissy about the lives of rock and roll stars. It takes over four hundred pages for Cissy to learn to understand and to love her mother again. It takes that length for her to accept the death of her own father, Randall. Randall Pritchard died when he flew off the road on his motorcycle. Cissy told her mother, Delia, she had killed him. Delia had abandoned her babies and spent most of the decade drunk. Delia and Cissy left Venice Beach to go to Cayro, Georgia. In Delia's career in music, the music had been made from the core of her. That life had been like a dream. Delia started to run to fight off the desire to drink. She had insomnia. She set up a workshop in which to sand and restore furniture. She listened to talk show radio while she worked and she got mad she told Cissy. Read on. I have read this author's books before now, and this is the best one.
Rating:
Summary: Redemption and Forgiveness Beautifully Wrought
Review: This is a lovely story written by a master of words. Early on she wrote, "They said to hear Delia Byrd sing on stage was like hearing your heart break in a whole new key." Words such as those make the price of the book worth it to me by themselves.
The story is multi-layered and at times a bit of work but well worth the effort. The book is a study of the evolution of love, friendship, forgiveness and redemption, all the while reminding us that until we forgive ourselves, we can never be forgiven.
Dorothy Allison would lead us to believe that you can go home again - perhaps the most painful revelation when you get there
will be not that everything is different but rather that nothing has changed.
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