Cavedweller

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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.

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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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Summary: Poets with a feel for female grief
Review: If you don't understand the term 'a woman's writer,' you will grasp its dreadful significance while reading Cavedweller, a story about the betrayed and scorned species. In this tale, the author kills Delia's two irresponsible, wretched husbands so she can empower herself for prime time on the Lifetime channel. As far as I read, the only surviving males are preachers.

Allison's prose reeks like a woman who overdoses on her favorite perfume; it smothers and distracts rather than enhances. She interrupts a dialogue between granddaddy and Delia with: 'Granddaddy Byrd spat again. Cissy looked at the spot in the dust where the spit had landed. There was a barely a mark (sic). The dirt looked like gray powder, but it was unyielding.' I got a good measure of granddaddy when he spat again, but by the time Cissy finished observing the dirt, I forgot what he said to Delia.

This is typical of every dialogue in Cavedweller. Smidgens of speech are interspersed with tedious interpretations of significance, explanatory back-story, or embellished circumstance of no apparent significance. Like a mother suffocating her child's efforts to tell a story with her own translation, Allison won't let her characters speak for themselves, and they never acquire a life of their own.

In my perception of the real world, a ten year old disappointed with the chicken chili might warp her face in putrid disgust, shove the bowl away and declare it to be 'yucky,' or if the child is resourceful, 'intensely gross.' Cissy, Delia's little daughter, however, suffers in silence and thinks 'The chicken was stringy and tough, the tomato tasted bitter, and the chili powder made her tongue feel spongy.' In the next paragraph, Cissy's mind muses in flamboyant hyphenation when she thinks of her half-sisters as 'a sharp-beaked, black-winged crow cawing loudly' and 'a wire-haired boar with razor-tipped hooves.'

Clint, Delia' dastardly first husband, talks the glitzy as well. In his deathbed, Clint rambles in poetic monologue ('on fire with the memory, just hot all over with shame') while Cissy meditates in prosaic similes, like 'as true as the links on a surveyor's chain' and 'like a ghostly wraith in a novel.'

We do learn that everyone in Cayro, Georgia, without exception, says 'an't.' Even Cissy who was raised in California, and Rosemary, the rich and beautiful black woman from Boston use 'an't' exclusively. I guess 'ain't and 'isn't' an't in Allison's dictionary.

Perhaps Allison's style would be less nauseating if she had a plot. Skip the first four chapters as these are nicely condensed in three paragraphs on the dust cover. Chapter five an't that much helpful either. Start with chapter six; there's sufficient back-story to get the gist of the tale without the tedium, then continue through chapter eleven where all conflict so far is resolved. In chapter 12, the author starts floundering for a new plot. After 13 meandering pages, I gave up. If you read the second half of this book, please post a note as to why it's titled 'Cavedweller.'

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Summary: Wonderful
Review: I found this book haunting. It stayed with me long after I finished. I also loved Bastard out of Carolina, but I think this is just as good. Dorothy Allison is unmatched in taking us into the country backroads and the everyday people who inhabit them.

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Summary: Another great novel by Ms. Allison
Review: Dorothy Allison would probably be my favorite author, therefore I've read practically everything she's written. Although when I read this book, I didn't get the same feeling that I did from Bastard out of Carolina or Two or Three Things. It didn't have the same gut-wrenching writing or intense emotional situations, but it's still worth reading if just for the experience with the author whose sentences are liquid poetry.

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Summary: No 'Bastard'
Review: While Cavedweller follows in the footsteps of "Bastard out of Carolina," the nuances and the feeling of getting to know someone just aren't there. I've loved all of Allison's previous works, I guess this one just didn't live up to expectations. I would, however, recommend this book and any other by Allison to lovers of Toni Morrison.

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Summary: Intensely Imagined and Captivating
Review: Dorothy Allison's eloquent vision exposes a sentimentality of everyday life that few dare to comprehend and ever write about.Immediately drawing the reader's attention,Dorothy Allison shows how she can control a world entangled in sensual dreams and direct realities.Within this world,Allison creates believable characters that explore life with wild abandonment.Furthermore,Allison is successful in her combination of and transition between the unsympathetic glitter of the music industry and the gospel revelations of the southern spirit.Her multifaceted and emotionally charged confessional leaves an undeniable impression upon those who can willingly accept their share of vulnerability.

Cavedweller narrates the lives of four unique women,linked together by the world in which they live.The omnious opening abruptly places the reader into Allison's intensive hands. From there,she begins to lead the reader on a vivid journey through misery and charm.The contextual settings within Allison's passages are also very indicative of Allison's knack for creating subtle imagery that holds profound meaning.

At some point, the reader must ask what is the significance of the novel's title-- Cavedweller.Allison delays the relevance of the novel's title,almost deliberately,which only entices the reader to explore more pages.But when the caves do appear,Allison does not hold back on her visionary excellence.She comes at the reader with full force,exposing a world of deep solace and contemplation.It is in these parts of the novel where Allison truly shines with her display of poetic prose and rhythmic sensuality.

Even after the novel is gracefully completed,Dorothy Allison's touching lyricism continues to remain with the reader's consciousness;adding more complexity,relevancy,and mystery to the life that everyone compulsively intends to find.*****

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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: enjoyable
Review: Enjoyable novel about relationships between women, as friends and family members. The characters are a bit on the stereotypical side, but it's worth reading.

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Summary: Fizzled at the End
Review: The opening sentence in this book grabbed me, and I was absorbed in the story up until the last few pages. The problem I have is that the characters seem to almost WANT TO tell more about themselves, but the writer never really finishes the task of developing them further. There is a great potential for a grand finale here, but it seems to sputter and fizzle and finally sort of just peter out. Plus it seems as though these characters just sort of pinball their way through the plot - bouncing off each other but not really affecting anything major. Dede is troubled and shoots Nolan..... and then what? She gets off scot-free? What about Delia's missing family? Seems to me there would be more on that, too.

Overall, this was an interesting read, but I was left fairly unsatisfied by the loose ends at the conclusion. I didn't really find myself caring too deeply for any of the characters -- and if pressed, I'm not sure I could even name a protagonist. Cissy? Delia? Their personalities were drawn so blandly and the action in the plot shot from one to another to another that I am left with a vague feeling of "Hey! This isn't finished yet!"