Mark and Lorna Reid of Author Packages for cover and interior design, line editing and all the extras that got this book to print.
For Mark Dodson, master stylist with Jyl Craven Hair Design in Canton, Georgia, who gave me a new look.
For those who hosted book signings and launches, especially: Mike Dempsey, Laura Hope-Gill, Lenoir Rhyne University in Asheville, NC for launching “Lilly” at Wordfest, 2019.
For all of the book clubs who read Catfish and Lilly
and those who invited me to meetings in person and via skype and facetime.
My family: children and step children: Lulie, David, Paul, Gretchen, Anna, Sean, Christopher, Kristine, Lee; my other brother, Johnny and my other sister, Angela; my cousin Letty, special friends, Beverly, Tanya, Clare, Jane, Karen, Laurie, Heather, Taryn, and so many more . . .
For Benny and Bobby, our brothers who preceded us, and for our parents, Ben and Mary Bennett. You are all together in heaven waiting for us.
For those of you who posted reviews on Amazon, emailed me, friends and strangers alike, to tell me that my stories and characters meant something to you, that you could see, feel, smell, taste, and touch the things I put on the page.
For everyone who reads my blogs and comments and for those who shared my posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thank you. You keep me writing.
Send your email address to Maddy at [email protected] to be included on the list of readers who receive advance notice of new releases.
Pronunciation of French/Cajun names
A note: So many of you in Book Clubs I’ve attended, asked me how to pronounce the Cajun names in my books. Since I grew up with these names, it never occurred to me they were unique.
Baudin—Bow-dan
Brazille—Bra-zeel
Breaux —Broh
Chenevert—Shin-ver
Comeaux—Co-mo
Desiré—Dez-er-ay
Galatoie’s—Gal-a-twahz
Goudeaux—Goo-dough
Guillory—Gill-oh-ree
Lamoré—Lah-more-ay
Marchand—Mar-shon
Michel —Me-shell
Ochsner—Ahk-sner
Richard—Ree-shard
Rousseau—Roo-so
Saucier—So-shay
Thevenot—Tiv-in-oh
Thibault—Tee-bow
Toussaint—Two-sant
Other terms
Bayou Boeuf—Bye-you buff
Reading Group
Discussion Questions
1.) Sissy calls Susie and Rodney’s wedding, “The wedding that never should have happened?” Does she still feel this way at the end of the book? What was most surprising about the wedding itself?
2.) Is it realistic to believe that this level of discrimination existed in the 1980s? What about today? How has discrimination changed over the past thirty years?
3.) Who do you believe should pay for the crime? Thevenot? Rousseaau? Burton? Borders? James? Others?
4.) How did Sissy’s relationship with her father differ from that of Susie’s and Marianne’s? How did those differences blind Sissy to the truth?
5.) Did Dr. Switzer’s role in helping Sissy make up for his complicities in Bob Burton’s abuse of Susie? How important was Switzer’s role in this story?
6.) What did you think of Sissy’s reaction to Warren and Joey when she realized they were the ones who attacked her?
7.) "That's the power of love," Dr. Warner testified about Rodney and Susie’s recovery. Why do you think they survived?
8.) Rodney said, “un-forgiveness eats at the person who harbors it… not the one it’s aimed at.” What do you think of this statement?
9.) At the end of the book Sissy says “I didn’t have to go into a trance to feel sunshine on my face and hear the waves of the Gulf of Mexico rolling towards the hot sand. I was in my happy place.” How could she be happy after all that she had learned? And all that had happened to her?
Biography
Madelyn Bennett Edwards is a Louisiana native who lives in Canton, Georgia with her architect husband, Gene. Sissy is her third novel, the final book in the Catfish-Lilly Trilogy.
“Maddy,” as her friends and grandchildren call her, went to beauty school to put herself through college, graduating from Louisiana College with a BA in journalism and English at 38—a single mom with two children. She earned an MA in writing from Lenoir Rhyne University in North Carolina after age 60. The former television health journalist started MBC, a television production company, in Alexandria, Louisiana in the 1980s, moved it to Nashville, Tennessee in the 1990s, and sold it in 2003.
Maddy is presently working on a fourth novel, also set in Jean Ville, Louisiana, from 1990-2010. She also continues to plow through painstaking work on her memoir with the help of Jessica Jacobs, a poet-writer in Asheville, NC.
You can read more about Maddy and her upcoming releases on her website, www.madelynedwardsauthor.com
Sissy Page 33
