Kate Fagan offers readers a story within a story within a story in The Three Lives of Cate Kay, which takes the form of a fictional memoir by a wildly successful author who does not exist--in this world or in the one Fagan has imagined. Kay is nothing more than a pen name, the third persona adopted by the girl once known as Anne Callahan from Bolton Landing, N.Y. ("a saga, actually--my name. I've had too many," she writes in the prologue to her memoir, which precedes the saga of her names). "Annie Callahan, aka Cass Ford, aka Cate Kay"--one person, one life, lived in three stories, with three names, "carved from a mass of bad decisions and selfishness and, it pains me to admit, cruelty."
Kay prefaces her memoir with a plea to be loved despite her shortcomings, but as her story unfolds, it becomes clear that she is her own harshest critic, holding herself to an impossible standard of excellence that ultimately keeps her separate from her true self. She even discredits her own ability to tell her life story, having "lived inside it for far too long," Kay argues with her editor, insisting on inviting those in her orbit (her childhood best friend, her first girlfriend, her first true love, to name but a few) to contribute full chapters. With footnotes from Kay throughout these insertions, along with excerpts from Kay's fictional bestselling trilogy, The Very Last, the final product reads less like a memoir and more like an annotated history of a person, pieced together through bits and bobs and asides as readers are invited to know Kay just as she comes to know herself.
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. Kaleidoscoping in and out on scenes from multiple perspectives, timelines, and points of view, 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, freelance writer
Shelf Talker: This ambitious debut explores themes of friendship, romance, intimacy, coming of age, coming out, and narrative form in a captivating, heartfelt novel bursting at the seams with love in all its incredible, messy forms.