Reviews for Cage's Bend

The average rating for Cage's Bend based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-08 00:00:00 Vonney Lancaster I was unfamiliar with this author, just came across the book in the public library. Parts of the novel, especially at the beginning, are pure brilliance. The ideas there are fresh and the writing is nearly poetic. The funniest and most outrageous scenes are near the beginning. There were several lines throughout the novel that made me stop and say, "Wow, I never thought of it that way." Where it's good, it's profoundly good. The two main characters, Cage and Harper, become less interesting as they grow from boys to middle-aged, mostly because they don't really even begin to act like adults until middle age. By the time it starts to happen, you're almost past caring. They each have psychiatric disorders but lack the reflective wherewithal to grapple with those issues in a way that would make their stories compelling. I sort of wished they'd been minor characters in a book about others in their family. The point of view is distinctly southern and male, which wouldn't have been a bad thing in this case if the female characters had been given some importance other than their ability to rescue Cage and Harper. Still, I was mightily impressed with Coleman's ideas and the way he puts words together. If he publishes another book, I'll read it.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-06-21 00:00:00 Mike D Wiethorn Coleman writes (and I'm not making this up): "I come up to New York a couple of times a year to see the exhibitions. I'm a kind of, um-" "Exhibitionist?" This is supposed to be funny, cause if it's not supposed to be funny, it's absolutely meaningless. How about people who say things like, "That's hella sad,"? Apparently Coleman (who grew up in Tennessee and Louisiana according to book jacket blurbs) thinks people in San Francisco talk like this. Or how about this one, a guy travels from the south and another guy makes a pass at him. The response? "Lay off, you old queen." This is just bad writing, start to finish. The story isn't awful, but an editor was needed.