Interview with R. Cathey Daniels - 2022
Interview #16 (Fiction, Literary Fiction, Psychological Thriller, Coming of Age Tale)
R. Cathey Daniels’ debut novel, Live Caught from Black Lawrence Press, was published in April 2022. Daniels won first prize in the 2018 Retreat West First Chapter Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the 2020 University of New Orleans Press Novel Contest. Her short story, "Boy In Waves," was a semi-finalist in the North Carolina Writers’ Network 2021 Doris Betts Fiction Prize and was published in storySouth. She is a 2016 graduate of the Stanford University Novel Writing Program. Connect with Daniels @CatheyDaniels and visit her website, rcatheydanielsauthor.com
Randal Eldon Greene: Hello, R. Cathey Daniels.
This story about a one-armed runaway who is taken in by an unorthodox priest was both unexpectedly poetic and, at the same time, filled with the most tension in any book I've ever read. I want to know where the idea for Live Caught came from and to get a sense of the process it took to transform that idea into this taut, mellifluous story.
R. Cathey Daniels: Well, in 2013 I had immediate need of a novel idea because I had been accepted into the juried, two-year Stanford Novel Writing program. So I pulled an elderly craft guide from my elderly bookshelf and opened it to the first page on writing prompts. Not a trick I’d ever used (and haven’t used since!) but I went ahead and picked a prompt. It went something like this:
Don’t think! As quickly as possible, write three opening sentences. Choose the one you like best, then just keep writing!
Yes—and ugh—pretty uninspiring. But the Don’t think! part appealed to me. Why? Because it gave me latitude to fail. Not my fault! I wasn’t even thinking! If I’ve figured out nothing else throughout this writing process, I’ve figured out this: Writer’s need a safe place to fail. So I followed the prompt, rapid-fire typing out my three opening sentences (enjoying every minute!).
Of the three, here’s the opening sentence I chose: Beyond the light of the farm, a coyote skirts the fence line, heads north under the moon’s halo, then circles back. You asked, Where did the idea for Live Caught come from? Well, it came from that first sentence, it came from setting: Oh look! There’s a farm! With a fence line! And a coyote! And by gosh that coyote is circling.
Then, to my mind, setting begot mood and tone. A dark mood. A dark tone. Here we are outside at night under a moon’s halo and that coyote, why did she skirt that fence line? Why is she circling out there in the dark? Heck if I know. But someone had to see that coyote under that moon’s halo, right? So I put a one-armed man on top of the barn (now there’s a barn!) bracing himself against the slant of the barn’s roof under the moon’s halo and holding a shotgun as he contemplates shooting the coyote. Well now, I have to ask, Why shoot the coyote? Is the animal stealing from the farm? Is it a danger to the man? That seemed way too easy (and boring). So I gave the coyote a limp, which was a neat mirror to the one-armed man. And now the two enemies have something in common, a sort of understanding between them. There’s tension in that understanding, but there’s also a kind of poetry, right? Even though that coyote can’t possibly know that man is one- armed, she can sense the danger of him. And she can sense his hesitation as well. As we said, he’s contemplating.
So what’s that contemplation look like for this man bracing himself against the barn roof ? Well, he’s thinking to himself, “Why is that coyote limping? Oh! It must’ve been shot! Of course. Earlier in the day. But by whom?” Which leads us to another character, an antagonist, this one-armed man’s older brother, who obviously should’ve hunted the coyote down and finished the job he’d started. Why does this one-armed man assume the shooter is his older brother? Why is he sitting on a barn’s roof? And why the heck would a coyote circle back toward an earlier danger? Do we have hints of plot and theme here? Yes! From there my characters began to grow, plot began to emerge and even theme sprouted from that farm’s soil under that moon’s halo. That was pretty much my process for this novel. Sentence by sentence I tried to insert as much tension as I could tolerate and I tried to write with whatever poetry I could muster. So, I’m really happy, Randal, that you call Live Caught a “taut, mellifluous story.” (But I had to look up the word mellifluous!)
Randal Eldon Greene: And that coyote does make a reappearance. Having read the book, I also see one of the prominent themes embedded in this initial idea.
You mentioned setting. There is an incredibly strong sense of place in this novel. Two places, really. There's The Block, where the wayward priest holds sway, and The Farm, where the dangerous presence of an older brother looms. Are these places of pure imagination for you, or are these settings plucked from your lived experiences? If they are imaginary locals, I need to know you managed to imbue setting itself with such personality.
R. Cathey Daniels: Ah, that sense of place. Love that you picked up on that.
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