JP Vallieres: Man in a Cage is written in the first person point of view. Could you describe your process and what it was like to channel our protagonist, Richard Garner?
Patrick Nevins: The impetus for writing Man in a Cage was my coming across a brief mention of Garner and his plan to study the vocalizations of chimpanzees from a cage within a jungle. I decided early on in researching and drafting to make Garner the narrator of his incredible story. There are contradictory accounts of what the real-life Garner did during his first research trip to Africa. There's his version, and there's the version that came out in the press following his return to America—and that version is much less flattering to him. I wanted to include the tension between those accounts in the novel, so I let the fictional Garner speak for himself—though I hope readers, like some of Garner's contemporaries, will be skeptical of his claims.
I had the good fortune of finding these very old, yellowed copies of two of Garner's books--The Speech of Monkeys and Gorillas & Chimpanzees. To hold copies of his books that his contemporaries would've read was kind of like traveling back in time, and reading them allowed me to hear Garner's voice. Those books are really just about his observations of primates, though. His demeanor when interacting with other characters emerged as I was drafting and developing the fictional Garner.
JV: What was your research process and how long did it take to write the novel?
PN: My notes are a mess, but I'm sure it took at least three years to write the first draft. There was just so much to read! I first read everything I could find on Garner, which wasn't a lot—a couple of books, some articles from his lifetime. He's so obscure that he didn't even have a Wikipedia page, though one did appear between writing the book and its publication.
After reading everything about Garner, I found myself reading books about the colonization of Africa and biographies of other key figures in the book, like William T. Hornaday and Samuel Sydney McClure. I also read about life in the Victorian period so I'd get the small details right—what Garner would've worn and how he would've traveled. That was a lot of fun. I was reading and drafting, reading and drafting, again, for at least three years before the novel felt finished.
JV: Historical figures, including Thomas Edison, loom large in Man in a Cage. So much was happening during the turn of the century. Inventions like the phonograph and the growing popularity of the bicycle altered daily life and research methods. Could you speak to the impact these inventions had on society, and how you were hoping this would affect the reader?
PN: The phonograph was very important to Garner, since that was how he recorded the vocalizations of primates for study. But I'm glad you mentioned the bicycle craze. When I learned about the invention of the pneumatic tire and how that led to the brutal exploitation of Central Africa for rubber, I knew I was on to something important for the novel. Themes of racism, colonization, and environmental stewardship grew out of that, and those are things we're obviously still struggling with today. I hope readers will find analogs in their own lives to the taking of rubber out of Central Africa for bicycles and the power imbalance inherent in that.
JV: Garner travels to Gabon to study the speech of primates. Once he’s there he sets up his observing station from inside a metal cage. There’s something absurd yet seemingly heroic about this picture of determination. How does the scientific community view Richard Garner now?
PN: That's an interesting question. My sense is that he's regarded today much the same as he was in his lifetime: brilliant ideas, terrible execution.
What's funny is that I often see articles pop up about new discoveries in ape vocalizations. Researchers are essentially continuing Garner's work. For me, Garner's earned a place not only in popular culture—Dr. Dolittle and Curious George's Man in the Yellow Hat have a little of Garner in them—but in serious primate science, too. I'm a great admirer of Jane Goodall, so I feel like I really have to qualify this, but Garner's kind of, sort of a proto-Jane Goodall. But, as you said, with something absurd about him!
Man in a Cage is out now through Malarkey Books and available through their website.
Patrick Nevins: The impetus for writing Man in a Cage was my coming across a brief mention of Garner and his plan to study the vocalizations of chimpanzees from a cage within a jungle. I decided early on in researching and drafting to make Garner the narrator of his incredible story. There are contradictory accounts of what the real-life Garner did during his first research trip to Africa. There's his version, and there's the version that came out in the press following his return to America—and that version is much less flattering to him. I wanted to include the tension between those accounts in the novel, so I let the fictional Garner speak for himself—though I hope readers, like some of Garner's contemporaries, will be skeptical of his claims.
I had the good fortune of finding these very old, yellowed copies of two of Garner's books--The Speech of Monkeys and Gorillas & Chimpanzees. To hold copies of his books that his contemporaries would've read was kind of like traveling back in time, and reading them allowed me to hear Garner's voice. Those books are really just about his observations of primates, though. His demeanor when interacting with other characters emerged as I was drafting and developing the fictional Garner.
JV: What was your research process and how long did it take to write the novel?
PN: My notes are a mess, but I'm sure it took at least three years to write the first draft. There was just so much to read! I first read everything I could find on Garner, which wasn't a lot—a couple of books, some articles from his lifetime. He's so obscure that he didn't even have a Wikipedia page, though one did appear between writing the book and its publication.
After reading everything about Garner, I found myself reading books about the colonization of Africa and biographies of other key figures in the book, like William T. Hornaday and Samuel Sydney McClure. I also read about life in the Victorian period so I'd get the small details right—what Garner would've worn and how he would've traveled. That was a lot of fun. I was reading and drafting, reading and drafting, again, for at least three years before the novel felt finished.
JV: Historical figures, including Thomas Edison, loom large in Man in a Cage. So much was happening during the turn of the century. Inventions like the phonograph and the growing popularity of the bicycle altered daily life and research methods. Could you speak to the impact these inventions had on society, and how you were hoping this would affect the reader?
PN: The phonograph was very important to Garner, since that was how he recorded the vocalizations of primates for study. But I'm glad you mentioned the bicycle craze. When I learned about the invention of the pneumatic tire and how that led to the brutal exploitation of Central Africa for rubber, I knew I was on to something important for the novel. Themes of racism, colonization, and environmental stewardship grew out of that, and those are things we're obviously still struggling with today. I hope readers will find analogs in their own lives to the taking of rubber out of Central Africa for bicycles and the power imbalance inherent in that.
JV: Garner travels to Gabon to study the speech of primates. Once he’s there he sets up his observing station from inside a metal cage. There’s something absurd yet seemingly heroic about this picture of determination. How does the scientific community view Richard Garner now?
PN: That's an interesting question. My sense is that he's regarded today much the same as he was in his lifetime: brilliant ideas, terrible execution.
What's funny is that I often see articles pop up about new discoveries in ape vocalizations. Researchers are essentially continuing Garner's work. For me, Garner's earned a place not only in popular culture—Dr. Dolittle and Curious George's Man in the Yellow Hat have a little of Garner in them—but in serious primate science, too. I'm a great admirer of Jane Goodall, so I feel like I really have to qualify this, but Garner's kind of, sort of a proto-Jane Goodall. But, as you said, with something absurd about him!
Man in a Cage is out now through Malarkey Books and available through their website.
JP Vallières is from the Village of Adams. He is the author of the novel, The Ketchup Factory. Some of his short stories can be found at Tin House, Passages North, and in Santa Monica Review. He lives with Kimmy and their four sons in northern Idaho.
Patrick Nevins lives with his family in Columbus, Indiana, where he is an associate professor of English. Man in a Cage is his first book.
Patrick Nevins lives with his family in Columbus, Indiana, where he is an associate professor of English. Man in a Cage is his first book.