Catfish: A Novel

by Madelyn B Edwards

It’s the 1960s and early 70s in small-town South Louisiana. Susanna Burton, a white girl whose traumatic home life is hidden behind her father’s political power, finds acceptance and forbidden love with an African American family and a young black man named Rodney Thibault. Rodney provides the tenderness and warmth Susie has never known in an era when anti-miscegenation is the law of the land. Even after the Supreme Court strikes down such discrimination, the Ku Klux Klan, other white supremacists, and Susie’s parents stand in the way of love. Forced to go their separate ways and live several states apart for years on end, Susie and Rodney continually find their way back together. At the heart of the novel, giving Susie and Rodney the strength to overcome the harshness of their world, and telling Susie stories of his family’s escape from slavery and oppression, is Catfish, patriarch of the Black family that accepts Susie more fully than her own blood. In her debut novel, Catfish, Madelyn Edwards subtly explores the chasm between black and white families that existed in the Deep South in the 1960’s and ‘70’s when Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan defied federal laws. While Catfish helps Susie Burton find her real self and set a course for her future during her time spent with him in the Quarters, she and Rodney embark on a journey fraught with violence and abuse as everyone from the Klan to Susie’s dad try to keep them apart. If readers find themselves routing for Rodney and Susie at the end of the book, Madelyn feels she has accomplished her task of blending color lines and making prejudice a forgotten emotion with "Catfish."

336 pages, Paperback

Published October 5, 2017

Reviews

[Marilyn Diamond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really thought this was a well thought out fictional novel. It made me realize that because we live on the other side of the tracks it doesn't get real. I believe this as a true story. I know there are members in my family that are called other names than Catfish. Catfish is a true character and has family, love and history to be told. Suzzie is a brave little girl grown up to a even courageous woman from the 60 and 70's. We endure domestic violence at the hands of parents daily. To live and tell the story is another issue. Bravo Ms. Edwards, loved this fast paced, suspenseful tale.