Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?

December 1, 2022

In award-winning debuter Bell's The Disenchantment, unhappily married Baroness Marie Catherine and self-confident Mademoiselle de Conti become lovers in a 17th-century Paris beset by scheming nobility and servants immured in witchcraft (35,000-copy first printing). In The Secret Book of Flora Lea, from New York Times best-selling, Christy Award-winning Henry, Hazel unwraps a package at the rare bookstore where she works to discover a book telling the story she made up for her little sister, who vanished after they were evacuated from World War II London two decades previously. Jackson follows up award-winning nonfiction with To Die Beautiful, based on the life of World War II Dutch Resistance fighter Hannie Schaft, who also figures in Noelle Salazar's recent Angels of the Resistance (50,000-copy first printing). In Morton's latest, Jess has an uncomfortable Homecoming when she returns from London to Australia after the grandmother who raised her is hospitalized; she learns that her family is linked to a horrific unsolved 1959 crime (250,000-copy first printing).New York Times best-selling author Noble tells the story of The Tiffany Girls, who did much of the design and construction of Tiffany's glorious glassworks without credit (75,000-copy first printing). Paul's Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? features Elise St. John, a young Black woman who is startled that she and her sisters have inherited the multimillion-dollar estate of star Kitty Karr Tate; then she learns that Kitty was actually her grandmother, passing for white (100,000-copy first printing). After the celebratedAriadne and Elektra, Saint brings us Atalanta, the story of a masterly huntress who was the only woman to sail with the Argonauts (125,000-copy first printing). A four-time winner of the American Library Association's William Boyd Young Award (for excellence in military fiction), New York Times best-selling author Shaara limns the life of Theodore Roosevelt in The Old Lion (100,000-copy first printing). Working at the Jeu de Paume during World War II after having fled Germany, Sophie executes a Paris Deception in Turnbull's latest; she rescues modernist paintings looted from Jewish families and set for destruction by smuggling them out of the museum and replacing them with forgeries created by her sister-in-law (75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Famed novelist/historian Weir follows up her "Six Tudor Queens" series by reimagining Henry VIII in The King's Pleasure.

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March 1, 2023
Hidden behind the glitz and glamour of 1950s Hollywood were real lives (and heartbreaking, necessary, lies). Paul's sprawling multigenerational debut hits the ground running with a peek at the complicated family life of an iconic, privacy-seeking clan of Hollywood stars: the St. Johns. The three St. John daughters--Elise, Giovanni, and Noele-- have gathered at the family's fabulous (complete with Ferris wheel!) compound to attend a memorial service for former film star Kitty Karr Tate, their beloved elderly next-door neighbor. In addition to the regular and intrusive press coverage to which the family is subjected, the media is anxious to find out why the three Black St. John girls have inherited all of their White neighbor's phenomenally huge estate. Superstar Elise, who was particularly close to Kitty, is tasked with combing through the star's trove of memorabilia and possessions, which may provide some clues. Paul's narrative circles back to trace Kitty's coming-of-age story and her ascent to the starry stratosphere she reached in the 1950s. The harshness of the studio system, with all of its attendant misogyny and racism, is obvious. What is less obvious, by design, are the steps many people took to create new lives for themselves once they reached LA from less hospitable places. Against an origin story of sexual violence and systemic roadblocks, Kitty and her California cohort survive a series of excruciating trials in order to live their dreams. The results of their choices, made in order to succeed and survive in the Hollywood machine, echo for generations throughout Paul's meandering yet page-turning narrative. Perhaps more poignant are the brave and strategic choices made by prior generations of women determined to secure better lives for their children with no assurances that those choices would be rewarded. With a plot worthy of a miniseries, an extensive cast, and a historical sweep, Paul succeeds in entertaining as well as enlightening.

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March 20, 2023
In Paul’s appealing if overlong debut, a Black Hollywood family reckons with a surprising and complicated past. The St. Johns live in a Bel Air mansion that features a garden maze and a Ferris wheel. Elise is the family’s latest star of the silver screen and up for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Her mother, Sarah, is also a storied actor, while her father, James is a renowned musician. Elise is preoccupied with managing her image and avoiding the paparazzi, until the death of neighbor Kitty Karr, Elise’s beloved mentor, who leaves a fortune to Elise and her two sisters. As Elsie goes through Kitty’s journals, the narrative winds back to Kitty’s hardships in 1930s North Carolina and mid-century Hollywood glamour, and Elise learns that while Kitty passed as white, she was actually a light-skinned Black woman. Though Paul crowds the narrative with far too many underdeveloped characters and makes a few too many implausible plot leaps, she ably describes Kitty’s transformation and unflinchingly details the racism, misogyny, and exploitation Kitty faced as a young woman. Though a bit clunky, the dramatic story and hefty subject matter would make a fine adaptation to the silver screen.

February 1, 2023

DEBUT Accepting and loving oneself can be very difficult when you grow up in the public eye. This is true of Elise St. John, one of three sisters who have been rich and famous since birth because of their parents' talents. Now she's been nominated for an Oscar that could expand her successful acting career, but she's not sure if that's what she wants. To complicate matters, her neighbor and friend Kitty Karr, a retired successful movie and TV star and writer, has died and left Elise and her sisters her multimillion-dollar estate. No one can figure out why an aging white actress would bestow her immense inheritance on three Black girls, but Kitty has left Elise in charge of settling her estate. In the process, Elise discovers something about Kitty that she didn't know and finds herself as well. This story takes place in two different eras and goes back and forth between the two. VERDICT Paul's novel highlights the burden and loss of racism by focusing on the color line and passing.--Laura Ellis

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2023
After years of living a reclusive life, iconic actress Kitty Karr dies, leaving her estate to the St. John sisters, the daughters of her former sitcom costar. As it turns out, the connection between the two families runs deep, back to Jim Crow-era North Carolina. Growing up, biracial Mary Magdalene is encouraged to experiment with passing for white. When Mary graduates from high school, her mother gives her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles and a new life as a white woman. Mary--renamed Kitty Karr--secures a job at a movie studio, and her talent and intelligence catapult her career. Kitty learns that there's a community of women in Hollywood who are not only passing but using their newfound white privilege to support Black Americans. But passing for white is fraught with danger during an era of segregation, and Kitty is forced to give up her beloved daughter, who is born with dark skin. While the story spans two time periods, Kitty is the star throughout the book. Paul's debut is a riveting, often heartbreaking tale that explores race, privilege, and celebrity in America through the eyes of a one-of-a-kind character. Readers of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Piper Huguley will be enthralled.

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