Cavedweller
Allison, Dorothy.

I copied the summary below (though it makes the novel sound a little dull, which it is not). I really thought this was a brilliant book. It cuts to the heart of how confusing it is to be a mother and still be a individual, and the ending created a nice epiphany for me. The author also wrote a book called "Bastard out of Carolina" which I was reluctant to read because it sounded pretty dreary but after reading this, I put it on order. I think she has some interesting insights into the process by which humans heal, and I like the feeling of resiliency that her main characters demonstrate.

******

"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 business; her passion for singing and songwriting; and a life lived on credit cards and whiskey with a man who made big promises he couldn't keep. Delia Byrd is headed back to Cayro, Georgia, and for the first time in years, she knows what she wants - the two daughters she left behind a lifetime ago." "Cayro, Georgia, is a world of truck farms and convenience stores, biscuit franchises and deep rooted Baptism. And, beneath this surface, caves: lost caves, known caves; caves called "Little Mouth" and "Paula's Lost"; caves where color explodes in the dark and where people have died and been buried; caves waiting to be mapped and explored. Cayro, with its red earth and kudzu, is the only terrain Clint Windsor, the man Delia ran from, and the two girls, Amanda and Dede, have ever known. And when Delia and Cissy reach Cayro, the past unfurls into the present, and Cayro, Georgia, becomes a more complicated place than any of them could have imagined."