BOOKS: The Cage
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:
The Cage, by Audrey Schulman. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (POB 2225,
Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2225), 1994. $17.95 hardcover.
Turning the convention of the glamorous lady photographer upside down, Audrey
Schulman’s first novel describes the attempt of a decidedly unglamorous and not just a little
perverse female photographer’s attempt to prove herself among male colleagues on a cata-
strophic trip to record the lives of polar bears near Churchill, Manitoba. The gay vegetarian
dies first. A quasi-vegetarian herself, the heroine turns to devouring meat and wearing fur
even before the real crisis begins. The Cage is a fine outdoors yarn, actually not unsympa-
thetic toward animal rights; Jack London would have approved, on both counts. Yet it
stretches credibility, since countless vegetarians live easily through the same expedition each
winter, via tours promoted by Natural Habitat Adventures Inc., who provided the photograph
above.
