![]() They are all deeply shaken by the murders. ![]() Peter’s Academy, where Audrey Banks was a student. While the murder investigation progresses far in the novel’s background, McDowell introduces us to other wealthy families whose teenage children attend St. With all its horror and glamour, this could be the opening of a thriller, but “The Cave Dwellers” is more interested in the bloodless crimes committed in country club dining rooms and at private school parties. “The consequences are fatal, socially and economically.” “No one in Washington wants to be part of a scandal,” McDowell explains. In fact, no one even notices when the house is set ablaze. The neighbors can’t hear the screams as they’re beaten with an autographed Ted Williams baseball bat and sliced open with a vintage samurai sword. Banks, their 14-year-old daughter, Audrey, and their housekeeper. A man enters a house near Rock Creek Park and ties up Mr. The story opens with a terrifying crime that will remind locals of the 2015 D.C. “They only socialize within their inner circle, which is impenetrable - turning a blind eye to those who come and go on the political merry-go-round.”… These are “the aristocratic bloodlines woven into the fabric of Washington,” McDowell writes. society since their ancestors lived in caves. “The Cave Dwellers,” McDowell’s debut novel, takes its title from a local nickname for the Capital’s oldest and wealthiest families, folks who have moved in the shadows of D.C. (And the Birkin bag was fake.) McDowell described that ordeal in her 2015 memoir, “After Perfect.” He was a convicted associate of Jordan Belfort, whom Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”įor a young woman raised in the gold-leaf parlors of Washington, in a home just a few blocks from the Kennedys’ Hickory Hill estate, her family’s sudden disgrace and poverty ushered in an era of traumatic reevaluation. McDowell wanted to ask him about that little problem, but she didn’t know exactly where her father was, only that he would soon be assigned to a federal prison to serve a 57-month sentence for securities fraud. And then there was that time McDowell discovered Dad had given her $100,000 in credit card debt. One Christmas morning, he gave her a Hermès Birkin bag. To celebrate her graduation from high school, she got a BMW. The humans run the gamut from cheerful hard workers to bitter and sullen killjoys.From a Washington Post review by Ron Charles of the book by Christina McDowell titled “The Cave Dwellers”:Ĭhristina McDowell was used to getting extraordinary gifts from her father, Washington lawyer Thomas Prousalis Jr. The wide variety of humans stand in stark contrast to the blissful utopia the souls have created. Neither Sharon nor Maggie ever express sympathy toward Wanda, not even when she's put in a different body at the end. Crusty old Magnolia isn't capable of accepting Wanda either. The same applies to Melanie's Aunt Maggie. Every single scene with her is a glowering stare or a rude remark. However, once Wanda/Melanie see her again in the caves, Sharon treats them with anger and disdain. She's the reason Melanie went to Chicago, where she got caught. Not everyone is eager to be Wanda's friend, like Melanie's cousin Sharon. Through them, Wanda realizes that human friendship has its highs and its lows, but friends stick together through it all, blah blah zzzzz. She experiences the vicarious thrills of a new relationship when Lily and Wes get together, and she feels the heartbreaking sorrow when the Seeker kills Wes. They braid her hair, prepare food with her, and play games with her. The ones that do accept her, like Heidi or Lily, treat Wanda as one of their own. They first glower at Wanda, then they accept her. While we learn the names of all the cave dwellers, most of them don't have any impact on the plot. Other Cave Dwellers Clan of the Cave Under There
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