Christina McDowell Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Christina McDowell is a literary fiction and memoir author best known for her debut work “The Cave Dwellers.” The author was born in Washington DC and later on lived in McLean, an affluent suburb of Virginia. She lived the kind 0f privileged childhood which the Washington Post once referred to as summers in a mansion in Nantucket when not on a sprawling Georgian estate a few streets from Hickory Hill.
She loves to say that she was brought up around quiet power. In fact, the father of one of her childhood friends worked on the atomic bomb. Christina’s father would end up indicted for stock fraud and wound up in prions just like Jordan Belfort the real life Wolf of Wall Street.
Once they lost everything when her father went to prison, they had to move to Los Angeles where she got small acting jobs and also did a stint as an actor on reality TV.
The author’s debut work The Cave Dwellers is a compelling story that explores the inner workings of the elite in Washington. It provides a glimpse into the world of tradition, power and money which has for decades had a significant impact on how everything works in the United States.
McDowell’s novel was published in 2021 to much critical acclaim.

To research her novel, Christina McDowell had to move back to Washington. For more than a year she lived with an old friend as she went out to explore the settings for the novel from the secretive Alibi Club where she got in since she knew a member of the Bishop’s Garden.
McDowell also began looking at DC not as she remembered it when she was a child but in the modern and complicated perspectives of adulthood. The cave dwellers who make their home in Washington and have lived in the city for generations seem to be losing their grasp. They are now seen as archaic people with outdated traditions.
These people still hold onto traditions such as fox hunting when they spend their summers at the Middleburg country homes and wear white gloves at their Daughters of the American Revolution get togethers. McDowell loves to think of these cave dwellers as living in some kind of ‘Game of Thrones” world while people have moved on a long time ago.

Christina McDowell’s debut novel “The Cave Dwellers” is a story set in Washington DC. It opens to the aftermath of the torture and murder of David Banks and his family. The multiple homicide of the Texas oil magnate and his family sends shock waves among their friends and family.
Meanwhile, Bunny Bartholomew who is the son of an industrialist is not having the best of times. His father is in court for dumping toxic chemicals and he is at a loss at what to do. His mother is too busy wondering if the Banks’ homicides were an act of divine intervention having seen the newly-moneyed family become their biggest competitors on the social scene.
On the other side of the city, an Army General’s son who is being investigated for alleged war crimes is living it up. He attends parties where he is filmed being waterboarded with champagne. At some party in the elite neighborhoods a senator draws a gun on a black man he had found cavorting with his daughter who turned out to be her boyfriend.
Meanwhile, Bunny starts making visits to the alleged killer in prison named Anthony Tell who had once worked for Banks. The man vehemently denies any wrongdoing but the courts have refused him bail. She is overwhelmed by guilt over her white privilege as she believes that he has been denied bail because he is black.
But her attempts to find the truth results in even more complications that threaten to bring down even more families.

“After Perfect” is one of the most telling memoirs that tells of an American dream upended. Christina McDowell tells the story of her upbringing in upper class Washington. They had all the trappings of the rich and flew in her father’s private jet, sped down the rich back roads of Capitol Hill, and spent their summers on Nantucket Island.
But their luxurious life had come to an end when her father was arrested on charges of fraud. He decided to take a plea deal as he did not want Jordan Blefort, the real life Wolf of Wall Street testifying against him. In the blink of an eye the family lost their clothes, cars, jewelry, homes and friends and soon after each other.
It is a candid story that follows the dark years that Christina had to endure following her father’s conviction. She spiraled into promiscuity and addiction, her mother broke down even as they accumulated huge debts.
McDowell explores her family’s disintegration and takes a deep look into her own life and the events of a controversial time.