Cavedweller (Basic) - Hardcover

"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, bringing about 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 ultimately it makes compulsive reading and is 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.

Cavedweller is an utterly different achievement, one obsessed with redeption rather than rage...rich and involving, and its generous vision of the world stays with you. (NEWSWEEK)

Almost nonchalantly epic, with the yarn-spinning rhythm of the old Southern legends, Cavedweller is Dorothy Allison's rock n roll novel: full of sweet dream fever and lots of lyrics and a couple of pistol shots. (BOSTON GLOBE)

A sprawling, bighearted, Southern-fired slab of family drama...charming. (ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY)

For the characters in this powerful novel...hope it to be found in the bleakest places, an redemption begins with owning up to their choices in life. (PEOPLE)