Cavedweller.

For her first novel since 1992's Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison has chosen to work in a tried-and-true genre -- the "wrong side of the tracks" potboiler. Cavedweller is a woman's book through and through, filled with women's suffering, women's strength, women's survival. These are pages damp with women's crying and weeping and sobbing and turning away to hide the tears they can't keep back any longer -- over rejections from their daughters or mothers, their misspent pasts, their renounced addictions, and the loss of their men. There's also much gossip shared, many confidences exchanged, and deep friendships formed.

These are women who come to each other's rescue at the drop of a hat. And when the going gets really tough, they dry their tears, repaint the old house or the beauty parlor or whatever, and put up fresh curtains -- and it's a new day dawning. These gals are Mildred Pierce and Stella Dallas; if they try to make a movie out of this, they'll have a hard time finding actresses big enough and tough enough to fill the parts.

There is a through line of sorts to this rambling Southern narrative. Delia Byrd, after leaving her two daughters for a brief tangle with sex, booze, and rock and roll, returns from Southern California to her hometown of Cayro, Ga., to reclaim her past and set her life to rights. To do this, she must regain the love of the daughter she brings back from California as well as the ones she abandoned in Cayro. She's got her work cut out for her. "'I hate you,' Cissy said, and it was as if Delia's three girls spoke in one voice. 'I hate you' became the chorus that slowed Delia's pulse until she felt as if she were swimming in a mud tide, the thick scum of her guilt clogging the chambers of her heart."

The novel's nearly 600 pages span most of the '80s, follow Delia's story and that of each of her daughters, and brake frequently for tragic anecdotes -- offstage relatives felled by pressure-cooker accidents or roadside disappearances. Delia pulls herself up by her bootstraps, first cleaning with the Dust Bunnies service, then returning to her first calling -- cosmetology -- taking over the Bee's Bonnet Beauty Salon (just down the road from Biscuit World and Goobers restaurant and bar). From there on, time passes, babies are born, old folks die, and the women end up stronger, burnished with the afterglow of survival and the confidence brought on by good hairdos.