Cage's Bend($29.90Value)

Description

Born eleven months apart and coming of age in the Deep South of the sixties and seventies, Cage and Nick Rutledge are the eldest sons of a preacher and a Tennessee housewife. 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, ten years younger, chases after his older siblings, trying not to be left out. Then comes the terrible day in July 1987. Tragedy strikes - and the breakdown of the family begins. The ensuing years will be an extraordinary test of strength, courage, faith, and will as each member of the family tries to cope in the face of unspeakable sadness. Cage, racked with guilt and grief, goes into a tailspin that ultimately leads to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. He careens from dazzling mania to delusional depression, and from grim institutions to promising comebacks. An early success on Wall Street, Harper grudgingly sticks by his brother, at the same time losing himself in vodka, cocaine, and the thrill of the chase. Their father, Franklin, now a bishop, agonizes over his ability to console others while unable to save his own sons. Their mother, Margaret, ever tenacious, refuses to retreat into the past, focusing instead on how to heal her fractured family. Cage's Bend is a multilayered story that explores the conflicting nature of family: the competitiveness, resentment, and filial devotion that engulf brothers...and the heartbreaking and sometimes painful decisions that parents of grown children face. 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