Review: Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? by Crystal Smith Paul

When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions.

A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty.

The truth behind Kitty’s ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them.

As Elise digs deeper into Kitty’s past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a sprawling page-turner set against the backdrop of the Hollywood machine, an insightful and nuanced look at the inheritances of family, race, and gender—and the choices some women make to break free of them.

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets The Vanishing Half in this debut novel about the life of a Hollywood starlet and the mystery she leaves behind for the three St. John sisters and the wider world. 

When Kitty Karr, a movie star from the golden age of Hollywood, passes, she leaves her immense fortune to the St. John sisters: Elise, Giovanni, and Noele. While Kitty was a grandmother figure who lived next door to the St. John family, the world is baffled as to why the white Hollywood legend left her fortune to three Black women of no relation to her. Of course, the media hides their racism by simply saying she should have left it to Charity, rather than three women who are already millionaires in their own right. But that doesn’t stop Elise from being under an immense amount of pressure to answer their questions. And at the same time, she is diving into Kitty’s past in an attempt to answer questions of her own.

This review is difficult to write because half of this book shined and the other half flopped. The historical fiction portions, which followed Kitty in her childhood, her move to California, and her eventual rise to stardom, were completely captivating. Before we get to Kitty, we first follow the lives of Hazel and Mary, a Black mother and daughter pair living in North Carolina in the 1940s. That portion of the novel also focuses on the love they have for each other, and the struggles of living under segregation. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it becomes clear pretty quickly (I think, at least) how they are connected to Kitty. These historical fiction passages have a fascinating storyline, strong characterization, and is really interesting thematically.

I think the real strength of Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is that it portrays a wide variety of experiences of Black women in America. It also specifically shows different women in similar situations who make completely different choices, and really delves into their reasoning of why they made the choices they did without demonizing one or the other. One of the major themes of the novel is passing, and it explores the many different reasons someone would choose to pass or not. If you can’t tell, it is very hard to discuss the themes of the novel without giving any spoilers. But suffice it to say the novel presents many thought provoking conversations on race and the experiences of Black women in America, both past and present. From segregation, to passing, to the Black lives matter movement, the author really shined in the thematic elements of the novel.

However, the modern portions of the novel, which follow Elise in the wake of Kitty’s death, were a significant drop in quality. These chapters read like they had been either inserted or entirely re-written much more recently, and thus did not feel fully developed. They seemed quickly slapped together, which was evident in the lack of coherency and eloquence in the prose. Often, sentences barely made sense. But more than that, the plot itself felt poorly constructed, and I couldn’t understand much of the point beyond giving us the perspective after Kitty’s death. There was some drama between Elise and her fiancé, and a romantic plot with Elise and another man, and which distracted from what I was really interested in, which was Elise’s relationship with her sisters and her personal response to Kitty’s death. It was a point where I feel like the responsibility rests more on the editor than the author. I can only hope that further revisions were made between the advanced copy I received and the final publication. It is truly a shame, because if the quality of the modern portion had been the same as the historical ones, it could have been a stellar book, rather than just a good one.