Publishers Weekly
★ 10/21/2024
Sportswriter Fagan (What Made Maddy Run) makes her fiction debut with the electrifying story of a bestselling author’s secrets. Many have read The Very Last, but few know the identity of its pseudonymous author, Cate Kay. The narrative, framed as Kay’s unpublished memoir, gradually unravels her true story. Raised as Annie Callahan in Upstate New York, she now lives in Charleston, S.C., under the name Cass Ford. When she was a teen, her friend Amanda fell from a zip line while trying to impress her. The accident prompts Annie to run away without knowing whether Amanda survived. She drives aimlessly north and winds up in Plattsburgh, N.Y., where she lives out of her car and works in a coffee shop, afraid to face Amanda and relishing her newfound identity under the name Cass. Eventually, she meets Sidney, a law student who encourages her writing and helps her understand her queer identity. She catapults to fame with the pseudonym Cate Kay and continues to shed her past, leaving Sidney for movie star Ryan Channing, who’s secretly a lesbian, after Ryan is cast in a film adaptation of The Very Last. Fagan fascinates with her enigmatic and shape-shifting protagonist, and the tightly woven plot will keep readers on the edge of their seats. It’s a blast. Agent: Katie Greenstreet, Paper Literary. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
By writing her memoir, Cate/Cass/Annie attempts to ‘throw open the windows’ and reveal herself to a ravenous public on her own terms. She acknowledges that her life is ‘a mass of bad decisions and selfishness,’ but she confesses: ‘I want you to love me anyway.’ And by the end of this propulsive puzzle of a novel, we do.” —Nina LaCour, New York Times Book Review
“Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid will love this propulsive novel...I couldn’t put this book down. There are so many threads woven together beautifully to tell a story about friendship, ambition, and love. It is sexy, gripping, heart-breaking, and ultimately, redemptive. I dare you not to read this in one sitting.” —Abby Abell, Amazon Editor
"The conceit of using a memoir to frame a fictional narrative is not new, but it’s hard to think of an author who deploys the format as intriguingly as award-winning sports journalist Kate Fagan does in her entrancing debut novel...In addition to whiplash-inducing twists, The Three Lives of Cate Kay also packs an emotional punch as Fagan thoughtfully explores complex topics including identity, sexuality, ambition and female friendships." —BookPage, Starred Review
“To call The Three Lives of Cate Kay epic in scope feels like an understatement. In her debut novel, Fagan succeeds in crafting a beautiful story of one woman's life across three parts, and also fully realizes a moving post-apocalyptic trilogy that reveals as much about Kay—and what it means to be human—as Kay's own experiences. Fagan deftly explores themes of friendship, romance, intimacy, coming of age, coming out, ambition, and narrative form in a captivating, heartfelt novel bursting at the seams with love in all its incredible, messy forms.” —Kerry McHugh, Shelf Awareness
“Centering on the experience of this small-town girl with burning ambitions, the book is exquisitely plotted with its inventive story structure, placing nuggets of information throughout to reel the reader in. Though the pace is leisurely, the tension of the story is taut and explores how ambitions clash with genuine connection and test the humanity of compassionate relationships. Fagan’s journalism-honed observational skills make her fiction debut shine.” —Booklist, Starred Review
“An electrifying story of a bestselling author’s secrets. Fagan fascinates with her enigmatic and shape-shifting protagonist, and the tightly woven plot will keep readers on the edge of their seats. It’s a blast.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"The Three Lives of Cate Kay peels back the provocative pretense of superstardom to tell a tale about friendship, love, ambition, and the burden of selves we bury but carry with us through time. Readers who crave a thriller’s pulse and a literary novel’s perception will be rapt and delighted by Fagan’s gripping and heartfelt debut." —Emily Habeck, USA Today bestselling author of Shark Heart
“The Three Lives of Cate Kay is a captivating novel of deep friendship and dark secrets. Come for the twisty turns and celebrity glamor, stay for Kate Fagan's bighearted writing and all-too-human characters. I can't stop thinking about it.“ —Laura Hankin, author of A Special Place for Women
“An emotionally driven thriller that explores friendship, love, and the pitfalls of fame. I couldn’t stop reading this twisty, big-hearted novel. The Three Lives of Cate Kay is simply unputdownable! Kate Fagan is a masterful storyteller.” —Emiko Jean, New York Times bestselling author of The Return of Ellie Black
“An addictive page-turner infused with humor and heart, The Three Lives of Cate Kay balances the dishy allure of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo with the empathy of Slow Dance. A joy to read from first page to last.” —Melissa Albert, New York Times bestselling author of The Hazel Wood
“I couldn't stop reading. The Three Lives of Cate Kay is the perfect book for anyone who has ever had to choose between a relationship and the pursuit of a dream. It asks how we balance our public and private selves and whether it is worth keeping secrets in order to advance a career. A delight from beginning to end." —Tasha Coryell, author of Love Letters to a Serial Killer
Kirkus Reviews
2024-10-10
When a young woman writes a trilogy of bestselling books under a pen name, everyone wants to know her identity, but she has reasons for keeping herself hidden.
The reclusive author Cate Kay is legally named Cass Ford, but she was born Anne Marie Callahan—and to her best childhood friend, she was always known as Annie. Growing up in upstate New York, Annie and Amanda did everything together. They especially loved to act, and they shared big dreams of running off to Los Angeles. Although Annie’s love for Amanda wasn’t entirely platonic, their attachment ran deep enough to survive their mismatched feelings. What their relationship was less able to survive was an unexpected accident. Annie ended up leaving town alone and creating a new life for herself. Dismayed by her cowardice in leaving Amanda behind, she takes on a new identity as Cass Ford and falls into a relationship with Sidney, a woman who seeks to isolate and control her. When Cass writes a runaway hit, Sidney—who’s one of the few people privy to her real identity—doesn’t want to share that information, or any other part of Cass, with the world. As Cass navigates her new success, she begins to wonder whether she ever really knew who she was and what she should do now that she has the power to choose. The story is presented as Cate Kay’s memoir and sprinkled with her own footnotes, but it also offers brief chapters from the first-person viewpoints of many other characters, implying that Cass has reached out to them for their perspectives. Through this documentary-like setup, author Fagan is able to round out the picture of Annie/Cass/Cate and the way she’s coped with various traumas. Though the characters are multidimensional and compelling, some of their actions are a bit hard to believe, like the way Annie abandoned her best friend in a moment of need and later accepted tragic news without any sort of verification. Similarly, there are times where the narrative is weighed down with irrelevant details. Even so, Fagan explores many complex topics with grace, ranging from toxic friendships to uncomfortable professional successes and undeserved second chances.
A smart and enticing fictional memoir.
