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A southern gothic adventure sourced in the
mountains of Western North Carolina
Lenny’s out of options. He’s lost his arm to his abusive older brothers and he’s lost his bearings within his family. Determined not to lose hope, yet desperate to escape, Lenny steals a skiff and attempts to ride the Carolina rivers from his family’s farm deep in the western North Carolina mountains all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. A torrential storm sinks his boat and delivers him into the hands of a profanity-slinging priest whose illegal drug operation provides food and wages for the local parish. Snared within a power struggle between a crooked cop and the priest, Lenny once again relies on the thinnest shred of hope in his attempt to escape.
Forthcoming, Spring 2022, from Black Lawrence Press
Semi-finalist, 2020 University of New Orleans Press Novel Contest
First Prize, 2018 Retreat West First Chapter Competition
“Daniels’ language in this book is both mesmerizing and terrifying, a master class in extracting every drop of drama. Its unique alchemy has ingredients from CLOCKWORK ORANGE and HUCKLEBERRY FINN – and whatever that oddball comp makes you imagine, this book is better.”
—Joshua Mohr, author of Model Citizen and Damascus
In Live Caught, Cathey Daniels’s beautifully hypnotic debut novel, Lenny dreams of escaping to the sea. His gritty, complicated journey offers him constant temptations and choices as he makes his way through a pageant of flawed saints and frightening sinners, including the violent brothers who have left him “a one-armed boy in a hell of mess.” In the wild, poetic world Daniels has created, Lenny betrays and is betrayed, steals and is stolen from, and harms and protects as he turns to face his life, urgently trying to solve the riddles of his hardscrabble home and past.
—Sarah Stone, author of Hungry Ghost Theater
“LIVE CAUGHT is about the long shadows—of family, of childhood, of siblings, and of memory’s sleight of hand. And like any Southern novel worthy of the name, there is … madness and fatal misunderstanding, and the inevitabilities of lives lived with those imperfect creatures we both love and hate that we call kin. And images cut with a brutal and beautiful scalpel.”
—Thomas M. Atkinson, author of Tiki Man and Strobe Life.
“I just loved the writing here—it’s incredibly accomplished and beautifully done with a vivid sense of place and a distinctive voice. Lenny’s dialogue—and the vagrant who attempts to rescue him—was pitch perfect.”
—Diana Beaumont, Judge, Retreat West Competition, Marjacq Scripts Ltd
“The characters in R. Cathey Daniels’ Live Caught are unforgettable. From the opening pages, I was captivated by the vulnerable yet intrepid Lenny, a one-armed kid searching for the safe home he’s never had and the profanity-slinging priest with a lucrative secret who offers him an elusive salvation. Daniels writes from the dark part of the soul, and the result is an unfiltered voice of elegance and style, an alchemy of meaning and heart. You’ll be dreaming this story in a North Carolina accent. I did.“
—Grant Faulkner, author of All the Comfort Sin Can Provide
Inspirational Art by Early Rachel
(Wait! Who Is Early Rachel?)
Early Rachel, “Parish Fields” 
Early Rachel, “Lane Farm” 
Early Rachel, “Farm Pond” 
Early Rachel, “The Farm” 
Early Rachel, “Buford’s Cabin” 
Early Rachel, “Lake Scene” 
Early Rachel, “Hatmaker’s Farm” 
Early Rachel, “Farm River” 
Early Rachel, “Rosey Face and Chub Ridge” 
Early Rachel, “Farm Lane” 
Early Rachel, “Farmland” 
Early Rachel, “River Escape” 
Early Rachel, “Woods Scene” 
Early Rachel, “Farm Road” 
Early Rachel, “Hideout on Rosey Face Mountain” 
Early Rachel