They Cage the Animals at Night is an autobiographical work by Jennings Michael Burch, published by Berkley in 1984. The bestselling memoir follows a period in the childhood of Jennings Michael Burch in which he passed in and out of the American foster care system. Jennings is forced to cope with abusive and negligent foster homes as well as a family that is constantly on the verge of collapsing. Over the course of these years, Jennings perseveres and matures by holding on to his kindness and by caring for others despite the coldness of his environment.

Plot Summary

The book opens at the zoo, where a grown Jennings takes care of his three children and remembers how the zoo was once a refuge for him. The main narrative begins with Jennings’ mother dropping him off at a children’s home; she tells him she will be right back. At the home, Jennings experiences abuse and a precarious environment that discourages friendship, yet through his compassion he befriends children named Mark and Stacy. He is lent out to a severely abusive family at one point, where he is beaten and starved, before he makes it back to the home. His mother eventually returns for him.

Jennings’ family is destitute, and this puts a great strain on their family unity. Jennings is held back from school for all his time in the home, and his mother gets sick, prompting his return to another children’s home. There, he makes more friends, but he is beaten and dragged across a splintered wooden floor by a nun and runs away. A policeman brings him back, and his mother once again picks him up.

Jennings returns to his dysfunctional family life, where he meets his terminally ill brother, Jerome, for the first time. Jennings befriends a bus driver named Sal, who grew up an orphan and who becomes a surrogate father to Jennings. When Jennings’ mother gets pneumonia, he is sent to live with the rich Frazier family. Their cook, named Martha, becomes a maternal figure to Jennings, and she helps him cope with being a poor boy in a rich neighborhood.

When he returns home again, the family is strained to the limit, and Jennings runs away to Sal, after spending days hiding out in the zoo. Sal begins to take care of the family, and things improve until one day Jennings’ mother falls down the stairs, breaking her back. Jennings is sent to another home where he meets Mark again, and they agree to become brothers. Mark tragically dies soon after, and Jennings spends months alone in the home until his brother picks him up.

In a new apartment, Jennings takes care of his mother and finds Stacy again. She becomes his first love, but after a time, she moves away. When his mother accidentally overdoses on pills, Jennings is sent to another home, where he takes care of a newly orphaned child. A woman beats him and humiliates him one day when he wets the bed, and he runs away back to the zoo. He is eventually caught by a policeman, who cares for him with his wife for a few days. Jennings runs away to the zoo again to avoid causing trouble for the policeman, and the policeman finds him there with Sal. In the Epilogue, Jennings reveals that Sal took care of their family from then on, and Jennings grew up to become a police officer and raise a family.

Throughout the book, Jennings is constantly abandoned, isolated, and loses those he cares about. He never gives up on making friends and having compassion for others, which is how he overcomes his hardships. The book also develops the idea that home is relative, and that one can create their own family and security with those they care about, whoever that may be.