Overview

With The Tiger and the Cage, Bolden uses her own experience as the starting point for a journey through the institutional misogyny of Western medicine--from a history of labeling women hysterical and parading them as curiosities to a lack of information on causes or cures for endometriosis, despite more than a century of documented cases. Recounting botched surgeries and dire side effects from pharmaceuticals affecting her and countless others, Bolden speaks to the ways people are often failed by the official narratives of institutions meant to protect them. Bolden also interrogates a narrative commonly imposed on menstruating bodies: the expected story arc of marriage and children. She interrogates her body as a painful site she must mentally escape and a countdown she hopes to beat by having a child before a hysterectomy. Only later does she find language and acceptance for her asexality and the life she needs to lead. Through all its gripping, devastating, and beautiful threads, The Tiger and the Cage says what Bolden and so many like her have needed to hear: I see you, and I believe you.

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Reviews

I read this book in a fury. Bolden's imagery is stark and vivid, and the prose moves in a spiral, encircling her pain, her confusion, and her strength. -- Emme Lund, author of The Boy With a Bird in His Chest The Tiger and the Cage opened my eyes, enraged me, and left me in awe of Bolden's enormous talent. -- Maggie Smith, author of Goldenrod and Keep Moving [Bolden's] lyrical descriptions and emotional honesty render this harrowing story hard to put down, and her critique of the medical establishment is both sharp and fair...A well-written, deeply researched, and searingly frank memoir about reproductive health. -- Kirkus Reviews Dark and riveting...[It] stings as much as it astounds. -- Publishers Weekly

[Bolden's] lyrical descriptions and emotional honesty render this harrowing story hard to put down, and her critique of the medical establishment is both sharp and fair...A well-written, deeply researched, and searingly frank memoir about reproductive health. -- Kirkus Reviews Dark and riveting...[It] stings as much as it astounds. -- Publishers Weekly

Author Information

Emma Bolden is the author of House Is an Enigma, medi(t)ations, and Maleficae. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship, her work has appeared in The Norton Introduction to Literature, The Best American Poetry, The Best Small Fictions, and journals including Mississippi Review, Seneca Review, StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, and Shenandoah. She is the associate editor in chief for Tupelo Quarterly. Emma Bolden is the author of House Is an Enigma, medi(t)ations, and Maleficae. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship, her work has appeared in The Norton Introduction to Literature, The Best American Poetry, The Best Small Fictions, and journals including Mississippi Review, Seneca Review, StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, and Shenandoah. She is the associate editor in chief for Tupelo Quarterly.

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