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Cavedweller
When Delia Byrd packs her car and begins the long trip home from the rock & roll business and LA, she heads to Cayro, Georgia, and her past. Ten years earlier, she had left the husband who turned on her, abandoned her two daughters, and fled to California. But Delia is pulled back to Georgia -- to a world of convenience stores and kudzu, of biscuit factories and deeply-rooted Baptism - to make a deal with the man she paid a high price to leave. She brings her third daughter, Cissy, with her. As the lives of Delia, Cissy, Amanda and Dede converge, Delia's past uncoils into the present with a ferocity that brings all four women to terms with themselves and with one another. Written by one of America's great storytellers, "Cavedweller" is a sweeping novel of the human spirit that maps a world of "lost" and "known" caves, the unexplored recesses of the heart, and the lives of four women at a place where violence, and what redeems it, intersect.
2 pages, Audio Cassette
First published January 1, 1998
117 people are currently reading
2907 people want to read
About the author
Dorothy Allison
77 books1,752 followersDorothy Earlene Allison was an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focused on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She was a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 334 reviews
August 12, 2019
I've never been more sexually frustrated by a book in my entire life.
I was so worked up, as I finished this freaking sexual tease known as Cavedweller last night, I Googled “nearest naval base,” hoping I could drive over and catch some sailors on furlough.
Yes, Dorothy Allison is an amazing, underrated author, but, why, oh why must she take the reader (over and over again) on her passages of taut prose, filled with tight, sexual tension and then refuse to allow the reader to reach the climax with these characters?
I mean, what's with the sweaty man thighs and the dark lady nipples and the hard spots and the soft spots and the wet spots and then. . . the looking, the thinking, the going home alone and the wondering? Wondering. . .
STOP WONDERING! I know exactly which item I want on the menu, and I order it, always, as soon as the server shows up. My meals have always come quickly, and I'm typically done eating before others have even figured out if they're hungry.
You'll be dead in five minutes, people. Place your order!
And if a cave isn't a metaphor for a vagina, THEN I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS.
In the cave we go. . . we three beautiful women. . . giggle, giggle. Oh! Everybody's so wet in this dark, moist cave. . . giggle, giggle. Our shirts are off and we're all just naked in this cave. . . giggle, giggle. . . but we don't know if we're gay or not, but we think we are. . . and we're all so young and sexy and wet in this cave, so. . . let's grab our shovels and dig for stones and wonder about it.
Stop wondering!
Stop wondering and start figuring out if you're gay or straight by exploring caves with gay or straight people who are standing before you WITH THEIR SHIRTS OFF!
This book is so infuriating; it felt like Ms. Allison went out of her way to decide that every character was either asexual after 100 pages of foreplay or had their coupling be suggested by them waking up together in bed with robes, newspapers and coffee.
And, I'm sick of CAVES! Sick of them.
They tease me with their possibilities. . . and nothing good ever seems to happen in them (last summer's disappointing cave read: The Clan of the Cave Bear).
Okay, but let's pretend for a minute that I'm not interested in sex, and let's assume that the taut, teasing plot lines didn't torment me. . . and I was just in it. . . for other reasons.
So, what of Dorothy Allison as a writer?
She's badass, baby.
Ms. Allison's a sassy, sexy Voice of the American South. I've never doubted a single character of her creation, never doubted the validity of her stories, either. And, unlike her more famous Bastard Out of Carolina, there's no disturbing sexual abuse on a child here (though, there is domestic abuse, so consider yourself warned).
But, Ms. Allison. . . what I want to know is. . . if you can write foreplay like this, why do you back away in timidity when the sexual tension builds to a crescendo??
Stay in the game, baby. Stay in the game.
DWELL LONGER IN THE CAVE, LADY!!
I was so worked up, as I finished this freaking sexual tease known as Cavedweller last night, I Googled “nearest naval base,” hoping I could drive over and catch some sailors on furlough.
Yes, Dorothy Allison is an amazing, underrated author, but, why, oh why must she take the reader (over and over again) on her passages of taut prose, filled with tight, sexual tension and then refuse to allow the reader to reach the climax with these characters?
I mean, what's with the sweaty man thighs and the dark lady nipples and the hard spots and the soft spots and the wet spots and then. . . the looking, the thinking, the going home alone and the wondering? Wondering. . .
STOP WONDERING! I know exactly which item I want on the menu, and I order it, always, as soon as the server shows up. My meals have always come quickly, and I'm typically done eating before others have even figured out if they're hungry.
You'll be dead in five minutes, people. Place your order!
And if a cave isn't a metaphor for a vagina, THEN I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS.
In the cave we go. . . we three beautiful women. . . giggle, giggle. Oh! Everybody's so wet in this dark, moist cave. . . giggle, giggle. Our shirts are off and we're all just naked in this cave. . . giggle, giggle. . . but we don't know if we're gay or not, but we think we are. . . and we're all so young and sexy and wet in this cave, so. . . let's grab our shovels and dig for stones and wonder about it.
Stop wondering!
Stop wondering and start figuring out if you're gay or straight by exploring caves with gay or straight people who are standing before you WITH THEIR SHIRTS OFF!
This book is so infuriating; it felt like Ms. Allison went out of her way to decide that every character was either asexual after 100 pages of foreplay or had their coupling be suggested by them waking up together in bed with robes, newspapers and coffee.
And, I'm sick of CAVES! Sick of them.
They tease me with their possibilities. . . and nothing good ever seems to happen in them (last summer's disappointing cave read: The Clan of the Cave Bear).
Okay, but let's pretend for a minute that I'm not interested in sex, and let's assume that the taut, teasing plot lines didn't torment me. . . and I was just in it. . . for other reasons.
So, what of Dorothy Allison as a writer?
She's badass, baby.
Ms. Allison's a sassy, sexy Voice of the American South. I've never doubted a single character of her creation, never doubted the validity of her stories, either. And, unlike her more famous Bastard Out of Carolina, there's no disturbing sexual abuse on a child here (though, there is domestic abuse, so consider yourself warned).
But, Ms. Allison. . . what I want to know is. . . if you can write foreplay like this, why do you back away in timidity when the sexual tension builds to a crescendo??
Stay in the game, baby. Stay in the game.
DWELL LONGER IN THE CAVE, LADY!!
October 19, 2025
Dorothy Allison’s world of females that persevere is full and nuanced and varied. They reject dependence, sometimes to their detriment, but always towards survival. One of the big questions this asks is how can one choose strength and will and still be open to love.
A lot of the tentativeness around vulnerability is between mothers and daughters, sisters and friends, as much as it is around lovers. And the world of small-town Georgia is all about its people, where Allison drew me in.
As much as the characters were unique and engaging, and the places drawn with detailed atmosphere, the story fell short. It started with a bang—a death and a road trip, a rock ‘n roll lifestyle left behind—and ended beautifully. But the in-between sunk and lifted, sunk and lifted again, as I struggled to find the thread.
I think the main character, Cissy, and her affair with cave-dwelling was the weakest link, but it’s hard to be sure: I had to abandon this about halfway through due to an old-book-dust allergy, and read other things in between before getting my new copy. But I found myself losing interest in the second half, wanting to be done, and then finding myself engaged and delighted once again. So, a push-pull relationship with the story, but the prose is there creating full emotional lives with all their pain and beauty.
“The dream children cried her name and held on to her: ‘Mama. We knew you would come.’ Their cheeks were hot and flushed, their hair smelling earthy and sweet, the way Delia’s palms smelled when she worked in the garden. She breathed them in and felt her insides tremble as the scent filled her. But the arms that reached out to Delia were phantom arms. The dream daughters were ghost girls, imaginary creatures. The road that went everywhere never went to Cayro. As the scent faded, Delia would jerk awake, her face streaked with tears and her muscles straining to hold what was not there.”
“At eleven Delia Byrd did the only known thing she could do. She balled her hands into clumsy fists and hit her uncle with all her strength, punched and kicked his stubbled chin and knobby ear, slapped at his loose drunken body. All the time she made the sound a baby makes being born. She opened her mouth and it came out—a groan that rose to a scream, a lifesaving terrible shriek that grew and grew…. Years later, when she stood up on a stage and opened her mouth to sing, it was the mourning wail that came out.
‘Delia Byrd sings like the angel of the apocalypse,’ a reviewer wrote. ‘She sings like she has been to the bottom of the river of life and come back full of the knowledge of death.’” And indeed she has.
You can see how dense this is, how full of emotion in those quotes. But I think a certain patience is required for this read, and an expectation of its flaws.
3.5
A lot of the tentativeness around vulnerability is between mothers and daughters, sisters and friends, as much as it is around lovers. And the world of small-town Georgia is all about its people, where Allison drew me in.
As much as the characters were unique and engaging, and the places drawn with detailed atmosphere, the story fell short. It started with a bang—a death and a road trip, a rock ‘n roll lifestyle left behind—and ended beautifully. But the in-between sunk and lifted, sunk and lifted again, as I struggled to find the thread.
I think the main character, Cissy, and her affair with cave-dwelling was the weakest link, but it’s hard to be sure: I had to abandon this about halfway through due to an old-book-dust allergy, and read other things in between before getting my new copy. But I found myself losing interest in the second half, wanting to be done, and then finding myself engaged and delighted once again. So, a push-pull relationship with the story, but the prose is there creating full emotional lives with all their pain and beauty.
“The dream children cried her name and held on to her: ‘Mama. We knew you would come.’ Their cheeks were hot and flushed, their hair smelling earthy and sweet, the way Delia’s palms smelled when she worked in the garden. She breathed them in and felt her insides tremble as the scent filled her. But the arms that reached out to Delia were phantom arms. The dream daughters were ghost girls, imaginary creatures. The road that went everywhere never went to Cayro. As the scent faded, Delia would jerk awake, her face streaked with tears and her muscles straining to hold what was not there.”
“At eleven Delia Byrd did the only known thing she could do. She balled her hands into clumsy fists and hit her uncle with all her strength, punched and kicked his stubbled chin and knobby ear, slapped at his loose drunken body. All the time she made the sound a baby makes being born. She opened her mouth and it came out—a groan that rose to a scream, a lifesaving terrible shriek that grew and grew…. Years later, when she stood up on a stage and opened her mouth to sing, it was the mourning wail that came out.
‘Delia Byrd sings like the angel of the apocalypse,’ a reviewer wrote. ‘She sings like she has been to the bottom of the river of life and come back full of the knowledge of death.’” And indeed she has.
You can see how dense this is, how full of emotion in those quotes. But I think a certain patience is required for this read, and an expectation of its flaws.
3.5
December 10, 2007
I love and admire Dorothy Allison. Both her non-fiction work (Skin, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure) and her fiction (Trash, Bastard out of Carolina) is extremely impressive on an intellectual level, as well as deeply moving on a gut level. So I expected no less from Cavedweller, her second novel. And I'm sure it is only because I went in to reading it with such very high expectations that it was disappointing.
Cavedweller is a very good book. It's just not as good a book as Allison's other books. The story, which follows the childhood of Cissy, who moves at a young age from Los Angeles to Cayro, Georgia with her mother, Delia, a recovering alcoholic and faded second-tier rock singer, doesn't hurt the way Bone's story in Bastard out of Carolina does. Though you are alternately in love with and pissed off by Delia, she doesn't spark the kind of pity and fury Bone's mother, Anney, does. Like in Bastard, the women in Cavedweller are strong and hard and more than a little bit crazy, and then men, both good and bad, are a little bit weak and simple. There is more room for forgiveness for that weakness and simplicity in Cavedweller, though, which may speak to Allison's greater maturity when she wrote it. The moral universe is not quite so black and white. But what it loses in clarity also makes it less compelling.
Bastard out of Carolina, is, to my mind, the kind of novel that someone writes only once. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, it is the novel that takes the other novels out of you. Given that, I think it was brave of Allison to write Cavedweller at all. Still, it's a sophomore novel, and it reads like one (albeit a particularly good one). Farther, probably, from Allison's personal essays than any of her other fiction, it loses something as it moves away from her. The characters in it that seem the most familiar (the wild and pained Dede in particular) are the strongest elements.
Should you read Cavedweller? Absolutely. You should just read all of Allison's other work first.
Cavedweller is a very good book. It's just not as good a book as Allison's other books. The story, which follows the childhood of Cissy, who moves at a young age from Los Angeles to Cayro, Georgia with her mother, Delia, a recovering alcoholic and faded second-tier rock singer, doesn't hurt the way Bone's story in Bastard out of Carolina does. Though you are alternately in love with and pissed off by Delia, she doesn't spark the kind of pity and fury Bone's mother, Anney, does. Like in Bastard, the women in Cavedweller are strong and hard and more than a little bit crazy, and then men, both good and bad, are a little bit weak and simple. There is more room for forgiveness for that weakness and simplicity in Cavedweller, though, which may speak to Allison's greater maturity when she wrote it. The moral universe is not quite so black and white. But what it loses in clarity also makes it less compelling.
Bastard out of Carolina, is, to my mind, the kind of novel that someone writes only once. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, it is the novel that takes the other novels out of you. Given that, I think it was brave of Allison to write Cavedweller at all. Still, it's a sophomore novel, and it reads like one (albeit a particularly good one). Farther, probably, from Allison's personal essays than any of her other fiction, it loses something as it moves away from her. The characters in it that seem the most familiar (the wild and pained Dede in particular) are the strongest elements.
Should you read Cavedweller? Absolutely. You should just read all of Allison's other work first.
June 23, 2012
This book was difficult to digest, but maybe that was for the same reason that it was so entrancing. Cavedweller is a book about women. Several generations of women who are all tied to a central character who, you realize as the book unfolds, had to make difficult choices. But, I related, or at least sympathized. What would you do if you had children with an abusive husband? What would you do when the next husband was a drug and alcohol addict? The story begins in the turmoil after she had made all of these decisions. So, the real questions tackled in this novel are: can you make good out of actions you've already taken? And particularly for women: how do you please everyone while still honoring yourself? In the end Cavedweller navigates dark tunnels and bright openings in a binding narrative that lasts nearly 400 pages. We then find that family is as much about friends as it is about relatives. That forgiveness is but one small piece of reckoning your past, but nonetheless a first step into that abyss of building relationships.
June 26, 2008
I had never heard of Dorothy Allision before, but I am so glad that I know of her now. I think she is a really smart author with important things to say. I started out really loving this book and not being able to put it down. Unfourtunately, towards the end I felt like the plot kind of fell apart and things began to get cheesy and predictable, almost like Allison had run out of creative steam. It is a very epic novel, in that it covers a long period of time, and the characters really go on a journey and end up totally different people than they are when the reader first meets them. Overall I would say that despite the slight deterioration in plot, I still really enjoyed this book and would recommend it.
May 26, 2022
DNF pg. 179
I think the writing is really good, but this story isn't grabbing me, and I think it's about time it grabbed me. I'm sad because Bastard Out of Carolina was a 5-star book for me, and this is just very boring by comparison. It's like there's both too much and not enough going on. So I'm done.
I think the writing is really good, but this story isn't grabbing me, and I think it's about time it grabbed me. I'm sad because Bastard Out of Carolina was a 5-star book for me, and this is just very boring by comparison. It's like there's both too much and not enough going on. So I'm done.
June 13, 2025
toujours un plaisir de lire un livre de Dorothy. celui-ci est plus léger que Bones, il y a autant de femmes fortes et attachantes
February 27, 2015
I was really enjoying this book by about pg 300 and then I just felt that it went on and on and on! I had planned to give it a 4 star rating but the length started to grate on my nerves. All in all a very good story about a dysfunctional family but just a tad too long!
March 15, 2025
I loved it!!! Need to read more by her
January 1, 2023
If you’d read other books by Dorothy Allison, you might be wondering like me where this book came from. It is about a certain kind of woman, and I won’t try to explain to you what kind of woman that is other than it’s probably the kind of woman you might find in some of her other books. So it does have that connection I suppose.
In someway this book is about two generations of a family. You go through a long story about the current generation, and you gradually learn a little bit now and again about the prior generation. Just a little bit. But you see how that generation, even if it was not literally present in the lives of the current generation had such an impact. And it also deals with a really difficult subject of women who leave their children.
This is a long book and it almost totally delve into the lives of women. Oh yes, there are men present, but the insights and the internal stories are almost always about the women. And they are almost always struggling.
In someways I was disappointed that this book wasn’t more of the Dorothy Allen that I had been expecting, based on her other works, but on the other hand, it is fascinating to see how this obviously came out of the same mind and experience as the others.
This is my last book of the year 2022. It is nearly midnight, and soon it will be a new year. This book kind of ends the way every year ends when you’re new there is a new beginning, but you don’t quite know what it will be the beginning of. It tries to accent the positive without being too much of the, and they lived happily ever after. But you have to think in this book, what could happen to them that could be worse? So it is hard to make this book into an upper! The women did make it out of that cave, but it was not an easy crawl. And as they realized, they could have died, but didn’t. And that, of course, was really the point! Lord, save me from happy endings like this one.
In someway this book is about two generations of a family. You go through a long story about the current generation, and you gradually learn a little bit now and again about the prior generation. Just a little bit. But you see how that generation, even if it was not literally present in the lives of the current generation had such an impact. And it also deals with a really difficult subject of women who leave their children.
This is a long book and it almost totally delve into the lives of women. Oh yes, there are men present, but the insights and the internal stories are almost always about the women. And they are almost always struggling.
In someways I was disappointed that this book wasn’t more of the Dorothy Allen that I had been expecting, based on her other works, but on the other hand, it is fascinating to see how this obviously came out of the same mind and experience as the others.
This is my last book of the year 2022. It is nearly midnight, and soon it will be a new year. This book kind of ends the way every year ends when you’re new there is a new beginning, but you don’t quite know what it will be the beginning of. It tries to accent the positive without being too much of the, and they lived happily ever after. But you have to think in this book, what could happen to them that could be worse? So it is hard to make this book into an upper! The women did make it out of that cave, but it was not an easy crawl. And as they realized, they could have died, but didn’t. And that, of course, was really the point! Lord, save me from happy endings like this one.
February 20, 2015
Ten years before, Delia Byrd left behind her abusive husband Clint and her two baby girls Amanda and Dede to follow the aspiring rockstar Randall. Randall and Delia find fame, alcoholism, and have a baby girl together, Cissy. After Randall drinks himself into an early grave, Delia packs up her youngest daughter and leaves California to return to Georgia to try to make amends for abandoning her two oldest daughters.
After Delia gets her girls back, the thread of the novel seems to split into five separate directions. Delia fixes hair, Amanda becomes a good Christian wife and mother, Dede pursues her angst and love of driving, and Cissy seeks out the thrill and darkness to be found in caves. The plot seemed meandering and lost, split in multiple strands that could each be their own book.
The women agree that they aren't "the type" (388) to talk and share their feelings. Cissy describes it as "the family connection that seemed so tenuous" (282). Still, it felt as if the women were never reconciled and lacking connection for most of the novel. The women find that they cannot fix their past, but in the end of the novel, they seem to all be limping towards a brighter future, one with a minimum of heartbreak, rage, and abuse.
This novel was good. However, after reading Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina, it paled in comparison. However, that being said, Allison does tragedy and heartbreak fiction incredibly well, and there were many lines that caught my eye: "Delia's memories of that moment were as golden and smoky as two inches of whiskey in a thick tumbler" (14); "Maybe that was the way music really worked, Cissy thought. Maybe talent was a blade cutting hard through those who had less" (257); and "When Nolan played for her, Cissy felt like a Baptist child at a Catholic mass - intimidated, awed, and suspicious" (260).
After Delia gets her girls back, the thread of the novel seems to split into five separate directions. Delia fixes hair, Amanda becomes a good Christian wife and mother, Dede pursues her angst and love of driving, and Cissy seeks out the thrill and darkness to be found in caves. The plot seemed meandering and lost, split in multiple strands that could each be their own book.
The women agree that they aren't "the type" (388) to talk and share their feelings. Cissy describes it as "the family connection that seemed so tenuous" (282). Still, it felt as if the women were never reconciled and lacking connection for most of the novel. The women find that they cannot fix their past, but in the end of the novel, they seem to all be limping towards a brighter future, one with a minimum of heartbreak, rage, and abuse.
This novel was good. However, after reading Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina, it paled in comparison. However, that being said, Allison does tragedy and heartbreak fiction incredibly well, and there were many lines that caught my eye: "Delia's memories of that moment were as golden and smoky as two inches of whiskey in a thick tumbler" (14); "Maybe that was the way music really worked, Cissy thought. Maybe talent was a blade cutting hard through those who had less" (257); and "When Nolan played for her, Cissy felt like a Baptist child at a Catholic mass - intimidated, awed, and suspicious" (260).
November 23, 2014
I liked this novel, and I wanted to liked it more than I did. It is ambitious, and the plot line has a strange shape because Allison tries to do so much, I guess. Perhaps I haven't quite figured it out, and maybe I won't because I don't think it's completely successful. Though the title is "Cavedweller" in the singular, only one of the main characters, one of the protagonist Delia's daughters becomes a spelunker. So surely the author must be referring to Delia, as well. And the characters in the family Allison depicts are all so tight-jawed, have such difficulty expressing emotion, that they are all cave dwellers. The scenes in which they force themselves, finally, to speak a few words of their histories, their emotions, or their truths, are few. And I found Allison's physical characterizations of her family members to be somewhat repetitive and awkward: one rubbing her neck, or the hollows in her cheek, etc. And yet, I found in the days after I read this novel, I thought back to it frequently. It's a world of long-suffering, stoicism, hard work, hard-won success, a few faithful friends, and not much else to look forward to.
September 9, 2016
I liked the rhythm of this one. I liked the characters.
Overall, it's a bit choppy. Any one of the threads--the drive across the country, caring for Clint, Dede and Nolan, Cissy and the cave--could have been a whole novel. She doesn't dwell too long on any one incident or story (kind of like Delia!). There's a lot of death and despair and mistakes and betrayal, and all of it described really well and carefully. It's not rushed, but she doesn't linger.
Sometimes people aren't perfect. They make mistakes. They have bad luck. They make poor choices. They get stuck in a bad situation. They have needs and addictions that hurt them and others. Maybe things don't always come right in the end, but there are chances to keep trying, to be compassionate, to be patient, to think out what you want.
Overall, this is an interesting portrayal of women's circumscribed choices--the ways in which women cope with what life throws at them.
Overall, it's a bit choppy. Any one of the threads--the drive across the country, caring for Clint, Dede and Nolan, Cissy and the cave--could have been a whole novel. She doesn't dwell too long on any one incident or story (kind of like Delia!). There's a lot of death and despair and mistakes and betrayal, and all of it described really well and carefully. It's not rushed, but she doesn't linger.
Sometimes people aren't perfect. They make mistakes. They have bad luck. They make poor choices. They get stuck in a bad situation. They have needs and addictions that hurt them and others. Maybe things don't always come right in the end, but there are chances to keep trying, to be compassionate, to be patient, to think out what you want.
Overall, this is an interesting portrayal of women's circumscribed choices--the ways in which women cope with what life throws at them.
April 4, 2009
I read this book late into the night because I found the characters fascinating (yet frustrating), and wanted to know what was going to happen next. There were parts at the end that kind of dragged, so it took me longer to read than most books, but overall it was a great story about how people cope with various life events. Although it wasn't the central focus, these lives were examples of how a tragedy and/or tragedies in the lives of young people, when not addressed, can recreate themselves in many forms (but also that stories can end better than they start).
September 9, 2015
I love Dorothy Allison's stories. I love the strong women she brings to life, the contexts she weaves around them, and her writing's descriptive power. I took a long time to finish this book, mostly because I didn't want to say goodbye to Delia and her girls. I found the spelunking passages especially compelling.
January 25, 2016
There was a little too much religion in this book for my taste. That would have been entirely fine but it's not what I was looking for. There was also too much random information about stuff that just didn't matter. That being said it was just an ok read.
August 5, 2018
This was a dense, multi-generational story that paints a picture of rural Georgia without being too on the nose. The characters had me, but I wanted more of a driving plot. That said, the writing was extra-ordinarily good.
April 14, 2018
I went on a Dorothy Allison binge this year. I don't want to tell you how to live, but if you're looking for a way to restore your reading life, Dorothy Allison is damn good place to start.
April 5, 2021
So often, life is about survival. Surviving the bad upbringing. Surviving the bad marriage. Surviving the bad addictions. And when survival doesn't work, escape is the only answer. This is a profound novel about survival and escape, promises kept and promises broken, forgiveness and redemption, and the powerful force of female friendship.
It is raw and fierce. If a book could leave a reader feeling battered and bleeding, this would be that book. It's that intense.
Delia Byrd of Cayro, Georgia, a dusty backwoods town with not much to offer anyone, married right out of high school and had two babies in short order. But after one too many beatings, she fled the man, leaving her babies. The book opens in Los Angeles when Randall, Delia's second husband and father of her third girl, Cissy, dies in a horrific motorcycle crash. Randall and Delia were in a B-list rock band, Mud Dog, and were sort of, kind of famous. (And then very famous after Randall's death.) After Randall's untimely demise, Delia hightails it back to Cayro with Cissy in an attempt to win back her daughters Amanda and Dede. But when she arrives in town, she quickly discovers that this deeply evangelical community holds a big grudge against a mother who would abandon her babies—even if the father of those babies was trying to kill their mama. And while the story shifts from the stories of Delia, Clint (the abusive, first husband), Amanda, Dede, and various townspeople, the focus is primarily on Cissy, who is 10 years old when the book opens. Eventually, Cissy becomes first enamored with and then obsessed with exploring caves, a powerful symbol of how she finds her own passage and maps her way in a difficult life.
This is also a book about life and death. Yes, living and dying in the bodily sense, but also the life and death of the spirit, that is the effect of dying to one kind of life and living into another—be it good or bad.
Magnificently written with a sorrowful but lyrical grace, this is one of those books that will haunt my mind for a long time to come.
It is raw and fierce. If a book could leave a reader feeling battered and bleeding, this would be that book. It's that intense.
Delia Byrd of Cayro, Georgia, a dusty backwoods town with not much to offer anyone, married right out of high school and had two babies in short order. But after one too many beatings, she fled the man, leaving her babies. The book opens in Los Angeles when Randall, Delia's second husband and father of her third girl, Cissy, dies in a horrific motorcycle crash. Randall and Delia were in a B-list rock band, Mud Dog, and were sort of, kind of famous. (And then very famous after Randall's death.) After Randall's untimely demise, Delia hightails it back to Cayro with Cissy in an attempt to win back her daughters Amanda and Dede. But when she arrives in town, she quickly discovers that this deeply evangelical community holds a big grudge against a mother who would abandon her babies—even if the father of those babies was trying to kill their mama. And while the story shifts from the stories of Delia, Clint (the abusive, first husband), Amanda, Dede, and various townspeople, the focus is primarily on Cissy, who is 10 years old when the book opens. Eventually, Cissy becomes first enamored with and then obsessed with exploring caves, a powerful symbol of how she finds her own passage and maps her way in a difficult life.
This is also a book about life and death. Yes, living and dying in the bodily sense, but also the life and death of the spirit, that is the effect of dying to one kind of life and living into another—be it good or bad.
Magnificently written with a sorrowful but lyrical grace, this is one of those books that will haunt my mind for a long time to come.
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August 29, 2019Dorothy Allison is a national treasure as far as I’m concerned. Like her terrific debut Bastard Out of Carolina, Cavedweller deals with rural poverty, addiction, family history, and the complicated social arrangements of small town life. Cavedweller tells the story of Delia Byrd, who left her two young daughters in Cayro, Georgia, to join a blues rock band. Then, after years of drinking, a few months of sobriety, many miles spent in a tour bus, the death of her fellow bandmate who is also the father of her third daughter, and a life built in LA, Delia impulsively returns to Cayro with her youngest in tow. The characters are gorgeously rich, their conflicts entirely understandable from all points, and consequently completely gutting. —Nina (excerpted from Bookish's Staff Reads)
March 17, 2023
This is my second Dorothy Allison book after, "Bastard Out of Carolina" and I have to say though it wasn't as good it was no less a good book. The story was very engaging and well-written and there were many plot developments that I enjoyed such as the progression of Nolan and Dede's relationship but I do wish there was more exploration of Cissy's character further than her fascination and sense of self and comfort in the caves. For a second it seemed that the book was going somewhere toward the development of Cissy's sexuality but it was not really talked about. The overall writing was very good and I did find the plot interesting but I would say don't go into this book with expectations higher than those for, "Bastard Out of Carolina." (I have heard that there are other books of her's people find better than this one so I will definitely be checking those out.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 25, 2023
it's absurd that this book isn't one of those books that everyone reads, this is a classic in the same way as the best steinbeck novels. i would diiiiie to teach this omg
October 24, 2023
Did not finish, stopped around pg 150. Too repetitive and slow for me and there are still no caves
February 5, 2025
i want to make everyone i’ve ever known read this book
May 28, 2024
Dorothy Allison writes great fiction (and non-fiction, I loved Two or Three Things I Know for Sure). Here we follow Delia, a woman who left Georgia, her husband, and three kids for California and a new life... ten years later she's drawn back to Georgia with her fourth child Cissy, and her past and present collide.
I still think that Bastard Out of Carolina is where you should start if you haven't read any Allison before. That's a novel that really breaks your heart. I wasn't moved as much by this story.
I still think that Bastard Out of Carolina is where you should start if you haven't read any Allison before. That's a novel that really breaks your heart. I wasn't moved as much by this story.
August 17, 2021
This was really gorgeous--it took a little bit to get into, but once I got going with it, it was really beautiful and tender while holding all these complicated characters in their entirety. The conclusion really felt right in the larger scheme of things--grappling with the trauma in the family in a way that really both felt real and like resolved without being magically cured. It's just a really beautiful look at the complicated way that love in families happens, the aftermath of that, and what beginning to heal might look like, and I really liked it a lot.
April 14, 2009
I loved Bastard Out of Carolina when I read it years ago in college, then really devoured Trash (short stories), Skin (critical theory) and at least loved the title of her poetry book, "The Women Who Hate Me." I bought Cavedweller in 1998, then promptly put it down after two pages.
Picked it up again last week. It's fine. Crafted like a page-turner, which it is and I know it was a bestseller, but it just left me disappointed. (Don't get me started on fears that if I read Bastard now I'll feel that way...I don't think so. I might not respond to the plot as readily as I did then, but i remember the writing was really really really wonderful.) Anyway, this has a promising start, really hot-metal-in-the-sun fast, then meanders from character to character and becomes, this is mean, a little Women of Brewster Place meets Fannie Flagg.
Oh that's awful to say. But I did.
Picked it up again last week. It's fine. Crafted like a page-turner, which it is and I know it was a bestseller, but it just left me disappointed. (Don't get me started on fears that if I read Bastard now I'll feel that way...I don't think so. I might not respond to the plot as readily as I did then, but i remember the writing was really really really wonderful.) Anyway, this has a promising start, really hot-metal-in-the-sun fast, then meanders from character to character and becomes, this is mean, a little Women of Brewster Place meets Fannie Flagg.
Oh that's awful to say. But I did.
February 12, 2013
in glancing over others' reviews, this one might be a miss. But let's give it a go!
Too little, too late.
My gut reaction was to ditch this one but I kept reading, expecting and hoping that something would happen. Things did finally happen, but they just weren't enough and they didn't come until near the very end. And if I was supposed to get something out of the whole caving bit ... I missed it.
This was a book of support characters. Not an ensemble cast, but supporting characters that never became fully three dimensional. Had the author selected one or two characters to concentrate on, I think the story would have been very different.
Too little, too late.
My gut reaction was to ditch this one but I kept reading, expecting and hoping that something would happen. Things did finally happen, but they just weren't enough and they didn't come until near the very end. And if I was supposed to get something out of the whole caving bit ... I missed it.
This was a book of support characters. Not an ensemble cast, but supporting characters that never became fully three dimensional. Had the author selected one or two characters to concentrate on, I think the story would have been very different.
September 2, 2014
Somehow didn't enter this one back when I read it, but I love-love-loved it. This piece, I thought, was how I feel about the ocean:
"Caving for her, Cissy understood, was like sex for most people. Though what other people thought about sex was nothing Cissy really understood. But in the dark she became for the first time fully conscious of her own body and curiously unself-conscious. Unseen, she moved freely. In the dark her body moved precisely, steadily, each foot placed exactly, while her hips rocked loosley on the pistons of her thighs."
"Caving for her, Cissy understood, was like sex for most people. Though what other people thought about sex was nothing Cissy really understood. But in the dark she became for the first time fully conscious of her own body and curiously unself-conscious. Unseen, she moved freely. In the dark her body moved precisely, steadily, each foot placed exactly, while her hips rocked loosley on the pistons of her thighs."
June 10, 2008
I really liked this book much more than I thought I would. After the experience of "Bastard Out of Carolina", I thought this would book would be a pale rewrite of the same theme but it was a very different and excellent story of a different sort. Maybe you can go home again and not have everyone resentful and jealous of where you've been, and you not have to relive every reason why you left in the first place. Recommendable to everyone.
(The book, not going home...)
(The book, not going home...)
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