ABANDONED. young men wake up in abandoned prison with amnesia

[Garrett]

I tried to read some of this book as a kid around 1996 in 4th grade school but I remember it being too advanced for me. It looked like the book was kind of old. The premise has always intrigued me though.

The main character wakes up in a prison cell with no idea how he got there or when. When he manages to escape his cell he finds other prisoners like himself. All have amnesia and are males in the teen to young adult range. The prison is abandoned and sealed shut and they have to uncover the mystery of why they where there and how to escape.
Distinctive details I remember:
One character was mentally retarded and was in a wheelchair and was taken care of by another character.
One part involved a food dolly that moved between floors via shaft.
One character was really good at climbing and climbs up the food dolly shaft at one point.

[Garrett]

bump

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Do you remember the ending of this book Garrett? If so, you might want to put it into a post, using the GR "spoiler" tags. To use that, type <*spoiler>the message<*/spoiler> but take out the *. (view spoiler)[You'll see this. (hide spoiler)]

[Garrett]

The ending... (view spoiler)[ was I believe the main character and 1 possibly 2 others escaped. The character who was good at climbing I think made it through a window or something. (hide spoiler)]

[Michele]

Hope someone solves this, sounds very interesting!

[A book away from an episode of hoarders]

bump

[Thomas]

Hi, all.

I just posted a query about a book that sounds like this one. All of the details Garrett shared sound really familiar to me. I am adding the following:

The main character wakes up in the very first scene alone in a room, and he initially thinks he is strapped in a bed, attached to the ceiling, facing down to the floor. Then his equilibrium shifts and he knows he's just in a normal bed.

I have been looking for this book for decades (I read it when I was about 10, back in the 1970s). I really hope we can figure this out.

[Thomas]

And I think I just tracked down the solution to this mystery. Here is another post from a few years earlier where it appears that the Goodreads folks figured it out:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The book appears to be called The Cage: A Novel by Roy Brown. Unfortunately, it is out of print and hard to find, but I am going to try.

[Garrett]

Awesome I think that's it! Won't know unless I can get a copy of it. Thanks Thomas.

[Thomas]

Hey, Garrett,

I bought a used copy online and it is DEFINITELY the book I was hunting for, so if that sounds like the same book, then you know what to track down.

Thomas

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Garrett, did you get a copy of The Cage by Roy Brown and was it your book?

[Rainbowheart]

Still out there, Garrett?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Garrett, did you get a copy of The Cage by Roy Brown and was it your book?"

No response in 2 years. Moving to Abandoned.