Cage's Bend [Hardcover]

Carter Coleman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2005

Cage, Nick, and Harper appear to be the archetypal sons of the ideal American family of the 1960's and 70's. The firstborn, Cage, is the golden boy-star athlete and scholar, adventurous, handsome, and preternaturally popular; Nick is the quiet, late-blooming middle son, and Harper, 10 years younger, chases after his older siblings, trying not to be left out. With the tragic death of Nick in the 1980's, the break- down of the family begins. Cage's guilt triggers incipient mental illness, and the next two decades find him swinging between mania and depression, between grim institutions and comebacks. Harper, who achieved early success on Wall Street, is torn between wanting to help his brother and seeking escape from his ghosts via an endless stream of woman.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The death of the middle brother in a tight-knit Southern family has a long-lasting effect on older brother Cage and younger brother Harper in this insightful second novel by Coleman (The Volunteer). Nick Rutledge is killed in his mid-20s in 1987, in a head-on car collision. His death devastates everyone—his Tennessee minister father, Frank; his mother, Margaret; Cage; and Harper. It's Cage, however, who bears the largest burden of grief and hidden guilt, discovering in the meantime that he's manic-depressive and spiraling into a decade-long bout of drug and alcohol abuse. His parents and grandmother try to give him the support he needs, but it's Harper who repeatedly finds himself cleaning up Cage's messes, even as he pursues a high-powered Wall Street career, drinking and womanizing to distract himself. Coleman writes insightfully and with a minimum of Southern sentimentality as he depicts Cage's illness and the wearying effects it has on everyone around him, and illustrates the sacrifices one makes—or doesn't make—for the sake of family. Brother Nick leaves little impression on the reader (most of the story takes place in the 1990s, though there are numerous flashbacks to the boys' childhood in the 1960s and 1970s) and at times the mechanics of the plot are a bit visible, but overall this is a good, solid, contemporary Southern novel.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Cage Rutledge was handsome, athletic, scholarly, and wildly popular. Nick, 11 months his junior, was quiet and shy and late to bloom. But the brothers were inseparable. When Harper came along 10 years later, he desperately tried to keep up at home and in public and always seemed to fall short. That's enough for a southern gothic right there, but wait. When tragedy strikes, Cage's inability to deal with the loss sends him into the manic phase of manic depression. He ends up institutionalized. His father, Franklin, an Episcopal bishop in Memphis, and his mother, Margaret, housewife and churchwoman extraordinaire, and young Harper do their best, but manic-Cage is a force of nature and depressed-Cage is a Promethean challenge. Told through the voices of Cage, Harper, Franklin, and Margaret, this novel captures the poignancy of the conflicting dynamics of family: competition, jealousy, and protectiveness. It creates memorable and arresting characters who step off the page. Often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, and very wise, this is a powerful new voice in southern literature. Elizabeth Dickie
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; First Trade Edition: January 2006 edition (January 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446576611
• ISBN-13: 978-0446576611
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #689,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Grand Old Southern Family Tale, With No Holds Barred, May 6, 2005

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cage's Bend (Hardcover)

Carter Coleman continues to prove that he is a fine writer who is gaining well-deserved wider attention. He understands the great Gothic style of the important writers of the South with all the jasmine-scented niceties that wrap the subdermal tragedies and secrets and yet he can move his characters out of their Southern atmosphere into the madness of the outer world and mold them into fully formed contemporary people. He seems to have the best of both worlds at his fingertips.

The Rutledge family goes back many generations in the humid atmosphere of Tennessee (Cage's Bend is a town at the bend of a river), a family with as many odd characters as solid ones. The Rutledges of this novel include Franklin, a bishop in the Episcopal Church, his strongly supportive wife Margaret, and three sons - Cage is the eldest followed by the year younger Nick and the ten years younger Harper. This ecclesiastically peripatetic family is a solid unit, each growing into parents and young men successful at their levels until a tragic car crash in 1987 kills Nick: the events leading to this crisis and the resultant sequelae on each of the members' lives make the substance of this story.

Idiosyncrasies are unveiled in a flashback flash/forward manner with 'chapters' of bold type history interspersed with first person accounts by Cage, Harper, Margaret and Franklin - a method of writing that allows us a more intimate vantage of each of the characters' perspectives. The tragedy affects Cage the most strongly: he feels responsible for the death of his beloved brother for reasons that unfold later in the book. Cage being the eldest carries the gene for bipolar personality disorder and the death of Nick triggers his first manic manifestation, followed by the seesaw manic/depressive episodes that change him from the successful athlete and businessman to a drug and alcohol besotted failure wandering the country seeking meaning and refuge from his soulful agonies. Harper as the youngest feels ignored by his father and less desirable than the departed 'holy Nick' to his mother and while he manages to become a successful stock broker, he is also plagued by being a sex addict, always seeking the mother that he felt eluded him.

The novel is spiced by that peculiar brand of Southern stoicism ("Cage will be fine, Mars. Don't you worry. Every good southern family has a manic-depressive....Fine old families often have more. They all learn to get by. They often distinguish themselves."), bandaids for problems that eventually peel away when the realities of the depth of the illnesses become blatant. Cage's words say a lot: "I don't see why everyone doesn't commit suicide. Life is like an all-night party with rivers of blow and naked playmates, but to get to the party you have to pass through a filthy hole, slathering yourself with excrement, and buy a ticket by prostituting yourself, and at the end of the night you have to squeeze back out through the fetid crack into nothingness." Reflecting on his past Cage muses he was "a child who smiled long before most, as if my happiness which began prematurely would spend itself prematurely and plunge the family into more sadness than anyone had ever dreamed, bearing the legacy of violence which the Cages brought to Tennessee, a curse of blood which would reach forward through time and seven generations to haunt the innocent soul of the first born and the last to carry the family name." And later strong Margaret adds "I read that manic-depressives have a better recovery rate in the third world countries because all the members of the extended family are close by and supportive. Surely that's the healthiest way to live."

So it is the return to the nuclear family unit that ultimately provides healing of the slings and arrows that take each member on a Rake's Progress. Coleman gives us wholly credible characters who never lose our interest or compassion. If at times he meanders through the myriad love affairs of the brothers or extended forays into sailing trips etc, it is all in keeping with the style of the novel. Don't expect this or treat this like a quick read: CAGE'S BEND is one of those novels that while at times seems to contain passages that can be skimmed, if the eye doesn't linger, some important metaphors and references are missed. Highly recommended reading. Grady Harp, May 05

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compared to Pat Conroy....., January 18, 2005

By 

Danielle (VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cage's Bend (Hardcover)

Everyone is comparing Carter Coleman to Pat Conroy. While I can't agree with that wholeheartedly, there was a certain familiar feel to this novel. Maybe more of an old school Wally Lamb....The quirks and dysfunctions of this Southern family were unique and interesting. Every family member has a voice in this book, with a seamless transition from one character to the next. It did take me a bit longer than usual to become engrossed in the story, but as soon as I did I was hooked. I found myself telling this tale to others and think it would make a wonderful book for a group discussion.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A quiet but ultimately engrossing tale of love & sacrifice, January 22, 2005

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cage's Bend (Hardcover)

CAGE'S BEND --- the mini-saga of the Rutledges in Baton Rouge, Memphis, Nashville, and other points south --- is a quiet but ultimately engrossing tale of love, sacrifice and vocational, if not spiritual, redemption.

The Rutledge family as a whole is not dysfunctional. The parents have what would be considered by any standard, normal definition to be a good marriage. The father, Franklin Rutledge, is an Episcopalian minister who is quick to acknowledge that his wife, Margaret, provides the underlying strength and drive of his success. When he refers to himself as the husband of the minister's wife, he speaks volumes of truth. Their sons, however, are another matter. Cage, the oldest, is full of promise, a state that goes unfulfilled when he succumbs to the sudden onset of a bipolar disorder, which is exacerbated at least in part by a combination of substance abuse and traumatic guilt over the death of middle son Nick. Meanwhile, Harper, the youngest sibling, has achieved great material success as a day trader yet is a moral disaster, happily succumbing to a sexual addiction.

Carter Coleman delivers what may be the literary observation of the year: "Every good southern family has a manic-depressive." And the character that he delivers in Cage speaks directly to this. Coleman makes the reader care about the characters, as he alternates viewpoints and time frames and travels the story across four decades. His best work is bestowed upon his descriptions of Cage, though Coleman goes beyond merely describing him. There is genuine empathy here, not only for Cage but also for those who continue to love him despite his maddening, frustrating behavior. Whether or not one agrees with Coleman's subtle message --- to wit, a man can function most effectively only when he gives himself over to the care of a strong woman --- he certainly makes a convincing argument for it.

CAGE'S BEND is not a southern novel in the traditional sense --- though Coleman references William Faulkner, he doesn't tread the same ground, nor will he be mistaken for Larry Brown or Tom Franklin --- but his descriptions of Memphis and Baton Rouge capture both cities perfectly. And though the book screams for a film adaptation, don't wait for such a release to dip into the lives of the Rutledges. There is no way that the film version of CAGE'S BEND can be as good as the novel. Jump on now.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub