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The Cage: A Novel
Widely acclaimed throughout the U.S. and Canada, the debut novel from Audrey Schulman reveals a talent as dazzling as the arctic landscape she so brilliantly evokes. THE CAGE is an unparalleled literary adventure — the story of shy and socially awkward photographer Beryl Findham, and her search for self in the most desolate corner of the Earth, among the most dangerous creatures that live.
247 pages, Paperback
First published January 4, 1994
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412 people want to read
About the author
Audrey Schulman
11 books89 followersAudrey Schulman is the author of three previous novels: Swimming With Jonah, The Cage, and A House Named Brazil. Her work has been translated into eleven languages. Born in Montreal, Schulman now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
September 28, 2020
4.5/5
Riveting.
A nature photographer joins an expedition to record polar bears on the Canadian tundra. The cold climate and the sense of danger suffuse the narrative as Beryl’s insecurities resurface. Small, weak, and ill at ease with most people, she finds solace in work. Because of her size, she can can fit the cage designed to let a photographer get close to deadly bears, and so she gets the deal.
The frozen wilderness gave me chills. Schulman builds suspense and terror with small details and simple descriptions. No horror scared me as much as the desperate crossing of the ice field. Character’s attitudes toward the power of nature varied and were fascinating to follow.
I love Schulman’s terse but evocative style. She uses simple words to great effect. And even though there’s no supernatural threat, the novel’s ending was terrifying.
Riveting.
A nature photographer joins an expedition to record polar bears on the Canadian tundra. The cold climate and the sense of danger suffuse the narrative as Beryl’s insecurities resurface. Small, weak, and ill at ease with most people, she finds solace in work. Because of her size, she can can fit the cage designed to let a photographer get close to deadly bears, and so she gets the deal.
The frozen wilderness gave me chills. Schulman builds suspense and terror with small details and simple descriptions. No horror scared me as much as the desperate crossing of the ice field. Character’s attitudes toward the power of nature varied and were fascinating to follow.
I love Schulman’s terse but evocative style. She uses simple words to great effect. And even though there’s no supernatural threat, the novel’s ending was terrifying.
July 11, 2012
Brrrr. I pulled myself out of this book and found it hard to believe that it was a beautiful warm green sunny day in July after I'd been immersed in the cold of Churchill, Alaska.
The story moves slowly, almost like a polar bear moving majesticly and slowly across the arctic landscape, but the early chapters reveal to the reader bit by bit Beryl's life. She DOES seem to be in a cage - whether that be her fear, her family, her body itself. This story is a tale both of decrescence and growth. How much can one pare oneself down? Must one become utterly diminished before finding freedom? Beryl is sometimes haunted by thoughts of a highly constrained future in which people have no more than a square yard in which to live. Her photography expedition follows this sort of path as her world shrinks first to a 400 sq. ft. bus then to an igloo, but at the same time it expands into the wide-open, brilliantly beautiful spaces of the tundra.
There's a lot to chew on in this book, especially about the nature of identity, size, and connectedness. This is a survival story, not just of the elements but of the soul. (some objectional elements)
The story moves slowly, almost like a polar bear moving majesticly and slowly across the arctic landscape, but the early chapters reveal to the reader bit by bit Beryl's life. She DOES seem to be in a cage - whether that be her fear, her family, her body itself. This story is a tale both of decrescence and growth. How much can one pare oneself down? Must one become utterly diminished before finding freedom? Beryl is sometimes haunted by thoughts of a highly constrained future in which people have no more than a square yard in which to live. Her photography expedition follows this sort of path as her world shrinks first to a 400 sq. ft. bus then to an igloo, but at the same time it expands into the wide-open, brilliantly beautiful spaces of the tundra.
There's a lot to chew on in this book, especially about the nature of identity, size, and connectedness. This is a survival story, not just of the elements but of the soul. (some objectional elements)
October 29, 2008
Absolutely hypnotic book. I am not usually a fan of "evocative" writing, preferring plot and character over writerly gymnastics, but Schulman strikes a perfect balance between the content and chilly style of this book.
April 4, 2012
This book.....wow. I am so close to giving it 5 stars. I have rarely been so compelled to read on, to see these characters through one of the most harrowing, unimaginable experiences I've ever encountered in fiction. While I was in the final chapters, where things really "heat up" (as much as things can "heat up" in the Arctic Circle), I was trembling, really trembling, with tension from the suspense, drama, danger, and fear I felt on behalf of these characters. They're "real people" in that they're pretty well fleshed out, believable, relatable--especially Beryl (the protagonist) and David (a companion photographer on the same expedition). Short book, page-turner in some places (especially at the end, as I've mentioned), nicely thoughtful but still well-paced character study in other places. Schulman is one of the masters of matching physicality to character, of making this reader, at least, truly feel present in her characters' lives.
July 17, 2018
The backdrop to Audrey Schulman’s gripping novel THE CAGE is the coming environmental destruction caused by global warming, as imagined by the novel’s heroine, Beryl, a photographer who has accepted an assignment to photograph polar bears while she’s sitting in a cage. Beryl foresees a future world where there will be no polar bears, indeed no large animals at all, as the large animals will be the most vulnerable to the coming changes. This will be a world, as she notes, ruled over by cockroaches, rats, and seagulls. Better photograph the polar bears while they’re still around.
Beryl travels to the far north (Churchill, Manitoba) where she joins up with her crew, three men of varying degree of likability. Before long, they are headed deep into the winter prairie, traveling in a small bus retrofitted for winter survival. It’s small and cramped, not unlike a space capsule (and the novel in some ways resembles classic science fiction of space travel), and before long human dynamics and then the bus’s mechanics go horribly awry. The novel now becomes the crew’s primal fight for survival, and, in Schulman’s hands, it’s an exciting, bone-chilling tale.
Besides an adventure tale and a haunting warning of ecological disaster, THE CAGE is also Beryl’s coming of age story. Before the assignment, she in a sense has already been living in a cage, confined by her fears, her shyness, her slight size, and her general discomfort with other people. As so often happens in adventure tales, Beryl’s plunge into the wilderness forces her out of her comforting defenses; with those gone, she now confronts and draws from her inner self and inner strength. A tiny, resourceful woman, she may be just the sort of person best fitted for what she sees as the coming dark days—that is, if she can survive the trek back to Churchill.
Beryl travels to the far north (Churchill, Manitoba) where she joins up with her crew, three men of varying degree of likability. Before long, they are headed deep into the winter prairie, traveling in a small bus retrofitted for winter survival. It’s small and cramped, not unlike a space capsule (and the novel in some ways resembles classic science fiction of space travel), and before long human dynamics and then the bus’s mechanics go horribly awry. The novel now becomes the crew’s primal fight for survival, and, in Schulman’s hands, it’s an exciting, bone-chilling tale.
Besides an adventure tale and a haunting warning of ecological disaster, THE CAGE is also Beryl’s coming of age story. Before the assignment, she in a sense has already been living in a cage, confined by her fears, her shyness, her slight size, and her general discomfort with other people. As so often happens in adventure tales, Beryl’s plunge into the wilderness forces her out of her comforting defenses; with those gone, she now confronts and draws from her inner self and inner strength. A tiny, resourceful woman, she may be just the sort of person best fitted for what she sees as the coming dark days—that is, if she can survive the trek back to Churchill.
April 19, 2022
Magnificent. The frozen wastes of this short novel haunted with me for months after I read it. Characters, imagery, storyline all top notch.
August 16, 2021
This was written in 1994 and first published in 1997. The author’s debut novel, a work of fiction, about a brave woman, small in stature (best to fit in the protective cage while taking shots) who had joined a group of nature photographers in a Canadian tundra, to take photos of dangerous polar bears in their natural habitat. The description of the harsh environment is excellent but I was more amazed that the principal character, Beryl, was able to vividly imagine what the future shall bring to it, a future which is now before us, almost 30 years thereafter:
“Beryl knew that in the future world of small things, the polar bear would probably not exist. The greenhouse effect will warm the North Pole by up nine degrees. The ice that bears live on during the winter won’t form until later in the year and will melt earlier, depositing the bears one by one into a bay a thousand mile wide. The seals that the bears live on won’t be able to survive without the firm ice. They will have nowhere to sleep at night, nowhere to birth their calves. They’ll swim, exhausted in the slowly freezing water, pregnant, wiggling their weight onto stiffening ice not quite ready to take them. The ice will bend slowly beneath them until the seals are once again left swimming. They’ll drown, the weight of their unborn calves spiralling them down in the dark arctic waters.
“The cod that the seals eat live off the algae that grows on the ice. The algae will have no place to grow. The Arctic is a rigid world: only a few species live there year-round, can thrive in its short growing season. In the Arctic the tire slashes of a single truck stay for years; the winter ice only deepens them. The ver-increasing marks of humanity—the tracks of snowmobiles, bulldozers, pipelines—are easily seen. In a climate where the camps from the early polar explorers have frozen into permanent museums, where their huskies still lie curled, their hair fluttering in the wind, where a human shit takes thirty years to disappear, where the smell from a seal’s corpse can last for a hundred frenzied arctic summers—in a climate like that a single tossed Coke can could outlive civilization.
“The ice that melts from both poles as a result of the greenhouse effect will fill the oceans, raise the waters. Beryl lived in Boston, a harbor town. When she walked along the streets, she imagined the tops of the trees swaying gently with the water, cushions floating by, a child’s toy slapping against the roof of a steeple. The light flickered, blue and solid.
“The water encroaches on all coasts. Weather patterns change. The Great Plains become desert. Food prices rocket up. Winter becomes more hesitant, with plants trying to grow in February. Annual migrations are confused and freak storms appear: thunder in January, blizzards in May. Some species—polar bears, moose, salmon—are wiped out. Others—cockroaches, rats, sea gulls—propagate wildly.
“This was the unbalanced, wounded world Beryl expected in the future; this was the world she thought she’d been made for. A world meant only for small, patient survivors, all things wondrous left only in books, the photographs strange as fables.”
“Beryl knew that in the future world of small things, the polar bear would probably not exist. The greenhouse effect will warm the North Pole by up nine degrees. The ice that bears live on during the winter won’t form until later in the year and will melt earlier, depositing the bears one by one into a bay a thousand mile wide. The seals that the bears live on won’t be able to survive without the firm ice. They will have nowhere to sleep at night, nowhere to birth their calves. They’ll swim, exhausted in the slowly freezing water, pregnant, wiggling their weight onto stiffening ice not quite ready to take them. The ice will bend slowly beneath them until the seals are once again left swimming. They’ll drown, the weight of their unborn calves spiralling them down in the dark arctic waters.
“The cod that the seals eat live off the algae that grows on the ice. The algae will have no place to grow. The Arctic is a rigid world: only a few species live there year-round, can thrive in its short growing season. In the Arctic the tire slashes of a single truck stay for years; the winter ice only deepens them. The ver-increasing marks of humanity—the tracks of snowmobiles, bulldozers, pipelines—are easily seen. In a climate where the camps from the early polar explorers have frozen into permanent museums, where their huskies still lie curled, their hair fluttering in the wind, where a human shit takes thirty years to disappear, where the smell from a seal’s corpse can last for a hundred frenzied arctic summers—in a climate like that a single tossed Coke can could outlive civilization.
“The ice that melts from both poles as a result of the greenhouse effect will fill the oceans, raise the waters. Beryl lived in Boston, a harbor town. When she walked along the streets, she imagined the tops of the trees swaying gently with the water, cushions floating by, a child’s toy slapping against the roof of a steeple. The light flickered, blue and solid.
“The water encroaches on all coasts. Weather patterns change. The Great Plains become desert. Food prices rocket up. Winter becomes more hesitant, with plants trying to grow in February. Annual migrations are confused and freak storms appear: thunder in January, blizzards in May. Some species—polar bears, moose, salmon—are wiped out. Others—cockroaches, rats, sea gulls—propagate wildly.
“This was the unbalanced, wounded world Beryl expected in the future; this was the world she thought she’d been made for. A world meant only for small, patient survivors, all things wondrous left only in books, the photographs strange as fables.”
January 8, 2020
Intense. Quirky. Brilliant. It took a few chapters but soon enough I was captivated. Seriously underrated, only 324 ratings on GR?! The writing is weird and wonderful, full of metaphors and imagery. At times brutal and raw, at others whimsical or even humorous. I knew very little about this book going into it and I think that's best. It was gifted to me from one of my fav people and that, and the short description on the back of the book were enough to get me quite excited.
"Audrey Schulman reveals a talent as dazzling as the arctic landscape she so brilliant evokes. THE CAGE is an unparalleled literary adventure - the story of shy and socially awkward photographer Beryl Findham, and her search for self in the most desolate corner of the Earth, among the most dangerous creatures that live."
Beryl's backstory and world perspective is built as you read. Each scene feels detailed and personal. I loved seeing how moments shaped her and how she acted in certain situations. I haven't read a book where a character is a realistically shy and introverted as Beryl. Her friendship with Maggie was one of my fav parts, two brilliant characters. In fact all of the characters were so well-painted. The environment was fascinating, I got chills reading this book. Beryl's projections of the future, with the changing climate, were haunting and powerful. This book was published in 1994, yet feels as fresh as any new release. It builds and builds. I didn't know where it was heading but I was so along for the ride. Incredibly engaging.
"Audrey Schulman reveals a talent as dazzling as the arctic landscape she so brilliant evokes. THE CAGE is an unparalleled literary adventure - the story of shy and socially awkward photographer Beryl Findham, and her search for self in the most desolate corner of the Earth, among the most dangerous creatures that live."
Beryl's backstory and world perspective is built as you read. Each scene feels detailed and personal. I loved seeing how moments shaped her and how she acted in certain situations. I haven't read a book where a character is a realistically shy and introverted as Beryl. Her friendship with Maggie was one of my fav parts, two brilliant characters. In fact all of the characters were so well-painted. The environment was fascinating, I got chills reading this book. Beryl's projections of the future, with the changing climate, were haunting and powerful. This book was published in 1994, yet feels as fresh as any new release. It builds and builds. I didn't know where it was heading but I was so along for the ride. Incredibly engaging.
January 7, 2026
Wowwww. What a thriller. I was literally biting my nails down on the edge of my seat reading to the last page. Nature is brutal and the author did a great job portraying it in its full glory. Great first read of 2026!!
December 28, 2024
My life feels small and insignificant. And I've never known cold in my life. I feel so warm.
July 16, 2010
Beryl, a successful nature photographer, lands the job of photographing polar bears in the arctic from the vantage point of a small metal cage. The expedition is run by a major nature magazine, professional in every way, but not by any means safe. Beryl wins the job because she is small enough to fit in the cage. There are three men on this trip, two photographers and a young guide, and together they endure (up to a point) a stake-out from a custom-built bus that is meant to last two weeks. When things go wrong, very early in the trip, Beryl and company must get back to civilization, by foot, without the cage.
Beryl, short, shy, and generally uncomfortable with people, has a sense of beauty as wide and mysterious as the Arctic itself. She passionately loves the bears, the sky, the colors present in all of the surrounding white. She sleeps, she dreams, and she thrives. The bears themselves are incredible. It is a great story, brilliantly written.
However, before leaving their little base of Churchill, Manitoba, they visit the town dump to watch the hungry bears eat sofas, metal lockers, trash of al sorts. The author does something to a young bear that made me close the book and put it in the return stack for the library. Before I actually returned it, though, bored with other books and still under the spell of the north, I retrieved it and skipped around before resuming the story from a place safely after the dump. I'm glad I did. But my investment in the novel changed. Without this incident, I would certainly have rated it 5 stars.
Beryl, short, shy, and generally uncomfortable with people, has a sense of beauty as wide and mysterious as the Arctic itself. She passionately loves the bears, the sky, the colors present in all of the surrounding white. She sleeps, she dreams, and she thrives. The bears themselves are incredible. It is a great story, brilliantly written.
However, before leaving their little base of Churchill, Manitoba, they visit the town dump to watch the hungry bears eat sofas, metal lockers, trash of al sorts. The author does something to a young bear that made me close the book and put it in the return stack for the library. Before I actually returned it, though, bored with other books and still under the spell of the north, I retrieved it and skipped around before resuming the story from a place safely after the dump. I'm glad I did. But my investment in the novel changed. Without this incident, I would certainly have rated it 5 stars.
June 28, 2017
I was excited to find this title in a list of The 30 Best Outdoor Survival books. Someday I will read this again to see if my initial opinion changes for the better. There was so much potential here, however I was very underwhelmed.
The female protagonist is selected as a member of a National Geographic-esque polar bear photography team. As a petite woman, her selection for the elite assignment is based on her ability to fit in a small reinforced cage which allows for extreme close-range images of the bears.
In this very short book, one is told that polar bears are big and dangerous, but they are minor characters overall.
Little time is spent in the cage. Our gal has a stereotypical sexual relationship with the silent and stoic local guide. The remainder of the book involves the team's complete lack of preparation for an emergency. Turns out that the locals have better gear and know more about their environment than the out-of-towners do. The ill-prepared team must make their way out on foot. Not everyone survives.
The Cage is a superficial and flat narrative about beasts and landscapes which should be vivid, primal and heart-pounding. It isn't.
The female protagonist is selected as a member of a National Geographic-esque polar bear photography team. As a petite woman, her selection for the elite assignment is based on her ability to fit in a small reinforced cage which allows for extreme close-range images of the bears.
In this very short book, one is told that polar bears are big and dangerous, but they are minor characters overall.
Little time is spent in the cage. Our gal has a stereotypical sexual relationship with the silent and stoic local guide. The remainder of the book involves the team's complete lack of preparation for an emergency. Turns out that the locals have better gear and know more about their environment than the out-of-towners do. The ill-prepared team must make their way out on foot. Not everyone survives.
The Cage is a superficial and flat narrative about beasts and landscapes which should be vivid, primal and heart-pounding. It isn't.
May 18, 2015
This book is both light and heavy backlit by the beauty and remoteness of the Arctic. It is at once about triumph and perseverance, and trudges through the inner world of the characters as they traverse the outer world around them. It offers a captivating and intimate portrait of a woman who escapes her life and finds herself. I would highly recommend it if you are a fan of nonfiction Arctic / Antarctic literature.
September 9, 2009
Abandoned this a couple of weeks ago. Too much stuff going on inside the head for my taste. I couldn't find the story due to too much introspection. Bring on the bears!
January 24, 2015
So close to being 5 stars. Fascinating & exciting.
March 12, 2016
Could've been more interesting if the characters had been more developed. Main character was strange and hard to understand. The ending? Well, it came too soon.
July 22, 2017
I don't know why Audrey Schulman isn't a bigger deal. She's a great writer, and this was a great book. The writing was poetic or perhaps hypnotic.
September 26, 2017
Girl hunts for polar bears, polar bears find girl.
April 23, 2021
Wow! What a ride! This book looked like a good read but I never expected it to be so riveting, so well-written, so realistic. The story is about a photographer who sets out on an assignment in the inhospitable and dangerous environment of the Arctic north. Her experiences there are life-changing. Schulman's writing sucked me in, put me into the skin of Beryl, the main character. The whole book is excellent. I felt the cold. I felt the coarseness of the hair of the polar bears. The verisimilitude of the descriptions is startling and vivid. The suspense about killed me. I loved all of that, which is a tribute I rarely bestow on any book. This is as fine as writing gets when it comes to putting the reader into the story. I only have a couple of criticisms, one minor, one major. The minor one is that the writer sometimes gets too obscure in her descriptions of Beryl' thought processes, taking me out of the story while I try to figure out what it mean. The major flaw is that on a few occasions Beryl does something so incredibly stupid that I had to stop reading. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil the read for others, but when you get to those parts, you'll understand. Despite these things, this book is not to be missed. It literally changed my opinion of certain things, which is a rare feat. I found myself thinking about the story most of the time when I wasn't reading it. Not just wanting to get back to it, but thinking about events in the story, which felt so real to me, as if I had lived them myself. I can't think of higher praise for a writer than that.
August 19, 2019
Of Course I Loved This Book
What’s not to like about an outdoor adventure with real characters and real consequences? Especially when it’s set in Alaska with bears all over the place? The protagonist here, Beryl, is a particularly brave woman who understands her vulnerabilities and positions herself to overcome whatever might come along. The picture of the big New York expedition, with the big NY equipment and attitude rings particularly true. I particularly admire the way the author presents a tragedy without dwelling, as many writers of arctic adventures have done in the past, on the gory details or the prolonged agonies. This is a book about a woman who finds her way, and it is done admirably.
What’s not to like about an outdoor adventure with real characters and real consequences? Especially when it’s set in Alaska with bears all over the place? The protagonist here, Beryl, is a particularly brave woman who understands her vulnerabilities and positions herself to overcome whatever might come along. The picture of the big New York expedition, with the big NY equipment and attitude rings particularly true. I particularly admire the way the author presents a tragedy without dwelling, as many writers of arctic adventures have done in the past, on the gory details or the prolonged agonies. This is a book about a woman who finds her way, and it is done admirably.
September 5, 2025
4.25⭐️. I found this in a little free library and I’m so glad I picked it up. I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did. Simple but effective writing style with complex characters and a setting that showcases Mother Nature at her finest. I love snow and the cold and books about winter and the cold, but man this one was pretty heavy. I didn’t expect to cry, but that’s a sign of a good author. I didn’t like the inclusion of romance and the ending could have been more concrete, but all in all, a hypnotic first half and a heart pounding second half. Really enjoyed it and will definitely pick up other works by this author
January 3, 2019
I really love this author whose stories involve adventure, nature and science, with quirky female lead characters. I've approached her work backward, starting with "Theory of Bastards" to "Three Weeks in Africa" to this, her first book, "The Cage." Yet again, she delivers a riveting read with a You-Are-There feeling—in this case, the frozen Arctic Circle, a punishing environment! Especially when you're there to photograph starving polar bears the size of refrigerators who view you as dinner. Needless to say, things don't go as planned. Wildlife photographers have my deepest gratitude.
April 13, 2022
My second book by this author after Theory of Bastards which was wonderful, as was this book. Although not my usual fare, her books are just so absorbing and thoughtful. You can read what it's about on the blurb (an expedition to photograph polar bears), so all I would add is that Schulman paints an unsentimental picture of situations full of both tragedy and perseverance.
June 20, 2021
My third by this author and just as excellent as the other two. I am engrossed by her protagonists, perhaps because I relate to them. I also love nature as co-protagonist, and how much I learn from each book. Now layer on the metaphors and exceptional writing and gripping plot. As others have noted, it’s a mystery why there are not more ratings for this author on good reads.
The cage, both literal and metaphorical, will haunt me for a long time.
The cage, both literal and metaphorical, will haunt me for a long time.
July 22, 2023
This is a woman-meets-nature story in which a photographer goes on assignment in the extreme north of Canada to photograph polar bears. Schulman does a fantastic job of portraying physically embodied experiences of dangerously cold temperatures as well as the social dynamics among the small group of four (three men and our focal character, Beryl) who don't all like each other but must depend on one another for survival.
July 1, 2020
Wow. An expedition to Churchill, Canada to observe and photograph polar bears turns deadly when the quartet of travellers is stranded on the frozen tundra. Talk about freezing your a#* off. Descriptive and realistic in terms of the dangers and landscape, Schulman ‘s novel is worth a read just to vicariously experience a region only the intrepid know and understand.
May 26, 2021
completely plausible and terrifying. A National Geographic type expedition up to Arctic Canada to photograph polar bears, up close from 'the cage,' goes horribly wrong as nature, in both the climate and the bears, proves stronger than science and technology. Like Jurassic Park in thrills, but more believable.
June 27, 2023
Loved the setting- in the Arctic with wild, unpredictable Polar bears, but this book fell short for me. The writing was a bit choppy and I wish the ending was a little more drawn out. The last 50 pages was exciting and thrilling though!
Would recommend if you are looking for a short quick read- only about 200 pages.
Would recommend if you are looking for a short quick read- only about 200 pages.
September 13, 2017
A first novel, decently written, about a photographer on an expedition with three others to shoot polar bears for “Natural Photography” and their adventures of survival after their bus fails. Decently-written.
August 26, 2018
This was on the shelf -- not sure why I bought it.
The mostly interior story of a woman photographer who is going to the Arctic to photograph bears and all of the misfortunes that befall the group.
The mostly interior story of a woman photographer who is going to the Arctic to photograph bears and all of the misfortunes that befall the group.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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