By: Saije Rusimovici, Staff Writer
I stumbled upon Crystal Smith Paul’s debut novel by accident, the cover featuring a glamorous woman dressed in the picture of old Hollywood elegance. I was instantly intrigued. I decided to download the ebook to escape the pre-holiday fiasco after a long work day. What I didn’t expect was to be instantly hooked, drawn in by the glitz and glamour of the movie business in the mid-1950s. A blend of historical fiction and mystery, the novel follows four generations of Black women over the course of several decades, their lives intertwined by love, trauma, and triumph.
Nominated for Goodreads’ Best Historical Fiction and Best Debut Novel this year, Smith Paul educates readers about the Jim Crow era, where Southern US states were particularly impacted by segregation laws. A young woman born to a Black mother and white father moves to LA and creates the identity of Kitty Karr, “passing” as a white woman in order to begin a career in the filmmaking industry. Despite escaping these laws, racial tensions are high in LA, and racism is rampant.
Passing as white refers to how non-white people appear or are assumed as white because of their lighter skin tone or certain features. In the context of the book, passing refers to a common practice in which Black people, often women, historically would commit to “leaving their Black identity behind” to pose as white in society, often in order to have better opportunities and escape racial oppression. This often involved moving far away from home, cutting contact with Black family members, and neglecting to tell any children they may have of their true ethnicity.
The book shows how passing can lead to a loss of one’s family, sense of self and community. Kitty is the biological daughter of a wealthy white man whose family her mother worked for. Since she was a child, Kitty’s mother had her passing as white, with trips to the white-only side of town. When she’s sent to LA as a young adult, she wrestles with the loss of her Black identity and connection with her family back home. She’s forced to leave her fiancé and cut contact with her only living relatives.
Throughout her journey in her new societal identity, Kitty encounters other Black women also passing as white. Each woman’s experiences are different. Some entirely embrace their new identities as they’re comforted by the security that comes with whiteness, while others desperately seek out asylum in Black communities. Many women who are passing are leading double lives, using their influence and wealth as “white women” to secretly support Black revolutionary movements.
In the present-day storyline, Black actress Elise St. John and her two sisters inherit Kitty’s entire fortune. To this day, no one has any idea Kitty is Black. Elise begins to unravel the mystery of Kitty’s early beginnings, the reasons behind her choices, and trials of the past that still perpetuate systemic barriers for Black women. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a beautifully tragic novel that unpacks the perils of womanhood, racial injustice, and resilience as it intersects with class.
The fictionalized story is based on the author’s family history. “As a writer, it was really interesting for me to take some of the struggles I know to be true in my family and make up the reasons why,” said Smith Paul in an interview with Brown Girl Collective. She dedicated the novel to her great-grandmother and both her maternal and paternal grandmothers. Much of the novel’s storyline is rooted in the impact of mother-daughter relationships, and she admits that it was often “very, very heartbreaking” during the writing process, but she wanted to “show the fierceness in which [she’d] been loved” by the women in her family throughout her life.
I thoroughly enjoyed everything about this novel, from the glimpses at old Hollywood to the modern day storyline where the St. John sisters begin to uncover the secrets of the life of Kitty. Throughout multiple timelines, Smith Paul encourages the reader to consider what life was like as a Black woman in the 1930s to present day. This allowed me to really understand the ways in which the past shapes the future, as the choices and experiences of each woman living in a different period of history directly impact the next generation.
