Kate Fagan
Bloomsbury
Otago Daily Times, March 22nd 2025
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that to catch the attention of potential readers a book must be accompanied by attention-grabbing hook. In the case of The Three Lives of Cate Kay (“Friend. Lover. Imposter”), which has been likened to Taylor Jenkins Reid’s wonderful The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the bait takes the form of a question: once we learn the truth “will everyone’s favourite novelist hold on to her place in our hearts or are some betrayals impossible to forgive?”
The answer to this, dear reader, is irrelevant, because it has little to do with the tale this novel tells. Despite her own, guilt-driven perception, the protagonist’s missteps are not so much betrayals as in-the-moment decisions whose consequences are entrenched by actions and actors outside her control, and the novel’s the real interest in it lies not in whether she can/will be forgiven but how she will find her happy ending.
The story opens in 1991 in Bolton Landing, a small upstate New York town in which nine-year-old Annie Callahan dreams of a life where she feels safe and loved, and her alcoholic mother would choose her before anything else. It is here she meets Amanda Kent, who will go on to become her best friend and (unrequited) first love.
Fast forward to 2000 and Annie and Amanda are ready to head for Los Angeles, the first step on a long-planned path to movie stardom. But Annie, feeling overshadowed by her beautiful and talented friend, is beginning to wonder whether she might be better striking out on her own. And when an accident leaves Amanda seriously – perhaps fatally – injured, she flees, leaving her old life and their shared plans behind. Reinventing herself as Cassandra (Cass) Ford, she goes on write a massively popular dystopian trilogy under the pseudonym Cate Kay, eschewing the limelight so effectively that only three people know Cate’s true identity: Sidney, the lawyer (and ex-lover) who manages her literary empire, Ryan, the actress (and ex-lover) who plays one of the main characters in the associated movie franchise, and, of course, Amanda, who recognises referents from their shared childhood in the books.
This novel, which takes the form of a collective memoir, is Annie/Cass’s attempt to reframe her story and reclaim her personal and literary identity. Told from the perspective of a variety of characters, their collated narratives annotated with snarkily amusing footnotes from ‘Cate’. Although this provides ample opportunity for unexpected revelations and plot twists, there is a sameness their voices. Ryan, for example, tells us that dyslexia disposes her towards simple, Hemmingway-esque sentences, but her chapters differ little in style from Cass’s own.
We are also treated to excepts from Cate’s own, decidedly formulaic novel, The Very Last, and I couldn’t help wondering whether her fame might be as more to do with her anonymity than her writing ability. Elena Ferrante she is not.
Overall, I found The Three Lives of Cate Kay an entertaining enough tale, but not what was presented on the tin.