Louisiana Catch

Louisiana Catch by Sweta Srivastava Vikram    261 pages

When I was offered a chance to review this book by the author, I jumped at it. I like the to-the-point summary she gave: “The book is about a grieving daughter and abuse survivor who must summon the courage to run a feminist conference, trust a man she meets over the internet, and escape a catfishing stalker to find her power.” What I wasn’t prepared for was how terrifying it would be.

Thanks to her mumma, Ahanna has recently filed from divorce from her abusive husband. Her life with sex-addict Dev has been a living hell. Terrified that people, especially her family would harshly judge her, she does everything she can to hide what her life is really like. Living in New Delhi with her parents, readers get to see what life there is like for an average woman. The scary part was how unsafe it is for a woman to venture outside her alone. But Ahanna receives courage and support from her Mumma and the rest of her family. 

Tragedy strikes while Ahanna is the in process of organizing a world-wide, feminist conference called “No Excuse.” The conference will be held in New Orleans in one year. She works long days, trying to digest what has happened in her life. Two men come into her life.

First is Rohan Brady, who lives in New Orleans. His PR firm is helping with the conference and Rohan becomes her right-hand person. He likes to tease her, is smart, funny and caring, something that Ahanna is not used to from a man.

Then there is Jay Dubois. She meets him in her online therapy group. As the pages unfold, readers get to watch Jay slowly turn from a seemingly-also depressed individual to a terrifying manipulator.  Jay represents Ahanna’s love life over the years. Jay gave me the creeps from the minute he is introduced, and it turns out, rightly so.

Viram does an excellent job in the slow build-up of the plot. It’s so subtle in the first two-thirds of the novel, that I thought there really wasn’t a plot. That slowly rising tension is enhanced by the voice. It sounds more like a memoir than a novel, which only adds to Vikran’s creditability. The last third of the book read more like a novel with high suspense

I enjoyed reading “Louisiana Catch” and give 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. I wish there had been an appendix that would define all the Indian words that Vikran uses. She defines the majority of them without getting in the way of the story, but I hated not being exactly sure that I understood correctly.