"Man in a Cage, Truth, and Coming in From the Cold" by Patrick Nevins
I first came across Richard Garner, the inspiration for Man in a Cage’s narrator, in Thomas Suddendorf’s The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals. I immediately found Garner’s obsession with primate speech unforgettable. The image of Garner observing apes from inside a cage in the jungle gripped me with such force that I thought: That’s a wild story; it should be a novel. Then: I should be the person to write it.
In the first semester of my MFA program, Patricia Henley handed out Ted Solotaroff’s essay “Writing in the Cold.” That was over fifteen years ago, but I remember the gist of it: For at least ten years after you finish your formal education as a writer, your writing life is going to suck. You’re going to experience a lot of rejection and self-doubt. I probably thought, “That won’t be me.” But guess what? It was! I was buoyed along by the occasional story publication, but things weren’t shaking out anywhere near what I’d hoped. Writing a novel about a man in a cage didn’t immediately feel like it would change things, but it didn’t not feel like a good idea.
I’d never written any fiction based on real people or events, so I was utterly in the dark on how to do it. I think I started drafting based on Suddendorf’s two paragraphs on Garner: Garner marching through a forest in search of a place to build his cage. It’s hot. Lots of mosquitos. He’s wearing a pith helmet, you know—one of those safari hats. Okay, now what? Obviously, I needed to learn a lot more.
I jumped into the few sources I could find on Garner. Gregory Radick’s The Simian Tongue: The Long Debate About Animal Language, provided a lot of information about Garner and introduced me to many of the individuals upon whom I would base more characters: Samuel Sidney McClure, Garner’s literary agent; Father Buleon, Garner’s nemesis at St. Anne’s Mission; even the traders Garner meets, McLaughlin and Wolfgang. Radick’s book helped me imagine a framework for the novel: Garner’s impulse to go to Africa (a journey he seemed mostly unsuited for), his journey and its attendant failures (there are many), and his return (followed by further troubles). As I was drafting, I came across a review of Radick’s book that suggested Garner’s story would be a great biopic (and the film and television rights are for sale!), which urged me on.
Not that I needed external motivation. I was having too much fun to quit. I got century-old copies of Garner’s books, The Speech of Monkeys and Gorillas & Chimpanzees, through interlibrary loan, and found a few of his articles online so I could hear his voice. The sources by or about Garner spurred me on to other sources: books about the Congo, biographies of other figures who found their way into the novel, even a wonderful history of bicycles.
And I got to tap into things I’d loved as a child but had all but forgotten by young adulthood. I loved Jane Goodall. Whenever there was something about her on TV, I’d be glued to the images of her and the chimpanzees at Gombe. And I was nuts about space exploration. One of my fondest memories of elementary school was an overnight trip to the U. S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. That was probably where I first saw photos of monkeys and apes and dogs used in test flights (I seem to remember some creepy models, too, diminutive monkeys restrained in capsules). This was also probably the age when I was reading Great Illustrated Classics, those chunky little abridgements full of line drawings. The riveting narrative of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea without all the descriptions of fish! (To be fair, I’ve read the unabridged novel as an adult and it’s delightful.) But somewhere in adolescence I started reading “serious” fiction. By the time I was sitting in my first MFA workshop, skimming Solotaroff’s essay, I’d left Jane Goodall, the Space Race, and Jules Verne far behind. But researching and writing Man in a Cage brought them all rushing back: natural science, the tension between environmental stewardship and environmental exploitation, and the drive to explore all converge in the novel in what I hope readers will find a satisfying narrative.
As I researched and recalled those early obsessions, a pattern emerged: I drafted; I read; I drafted more; I read more. I developed restraint: At first, I wanted to shoehorn every story and detail about Garner and the world he inhabited into the novel, but many simply didn’t earn a place. The November 23, 1919, edition of The New York Times ran this headline: “Prof. Garner Sues for $100,000; Says Picture Had Him Kissing Ape.” Garner insisted that it wasn’t him in a picture the newspaper ran of a man kissing a chimpanzee. He died while the case was ongoing, but he was vindicated, as the Times later reported that it indeed wasn’t Garner laying one on the ape. Kind of an irresistible story, right? But ultimately, there was no place for it in Man in a Cage.
The most important habit I developed in writing Man in a Cage (and what I’ve practiced in writing historical short stories, too) is letting the historical truth shrink while the artistic truth grows. The record gives way to the imagination. The imagined Richard Garner retains an outline of the real Richard Garner—the self-styled naturalist who was popular among scientific circles and the public before finding himself embroiled in controversy—but he is undoubtedly a fiction. As the novel’s themes of ambition, what counts as science, and the brutality of colonialism emerged, I shaped Garner into a character not unlike the real Garner, who grew up in the antebellum South and adopted the racist beliefs common among scientists in the late nineteenth century, but yet had the humanity necessary to be a trusted witness to the indignities of the Scramble for Africa. It’s the fictional Garner’s humanity, not the real Garner’s humanity (which is impossible to know), that should matter to readers.
The shrinking historical truth/growing artistic truth concept applies to every aspect of the novel. The characters based on historical figures all retain features of those real people, but are shaped to help or hinder Garner. The settings, too, from the Smithsonian to St. Anne’s to a Gabonese village, I’ve also tried to render with historical accuracy while admitting the limits of my understanding and permitting myself to imagine them in a way that serves the novel’s themes.
Now Man in a Cage is out in the wild, and I feel a lot less like I’m “writing in the cold.” I needed that time, though, those years when I had nothing urging me on except my own insistence that there was value in what I was doing. Every writer needs that time to hone their craft and, just as importantly, recall and sit with their subject matter—their own unforgettable obsessions.
Patrick Nevins lives with his family in Columbus, Indiana. Man in a Cage is his first book.
