There’s a trace of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl about Kate Fagan’s debut novel, in which you quickly learn that the main character has done a runner and changed identities more than once. The novel is the so-called memoir of Anne Marie (Annie) Callaghan, also known as Cass Ford, and also as the bestselling author Cate Kay, who has never been seen in public.
It describes early on a major incident in the lives of two best friends, Annie and Amanda, two leading lights in the annual school play. They have plans to seek their fortunes in Hollywood after high school finishes and Annie in particular, brought up by a distracted, alcoholic mother, can’t wait to leave her small town. Amanda, meanwhile, is a star full of talent who wants more.
But after a devastating accident, Annie hightails it out of town, leaving Amanda behind in her panic. She learns a few weeks later that Amanda did not survive. She takes her grief and guilt to New York, supported by a new girlfriend and ambitious beginner lawyer, Sidney.
We know from the outset that Annie, under the pen name Cate Kay, becomes a famous writer of a novel set in New York after a nuclear attack, but as the story goes on, we discover that The Very Last is, among other things, a love letter to Amanda.
Other narrators contribute to Annie’s story, written over a number of time periods from 1991 to 2013, including Amanda, Sidney, Amanda’s sister Kerri, the two friends’ drama teacher and a New York journalist called Jake. From the various memoir contributions, we learn about Annie and Amanda’s friendship, how Annie almost wanted to be less dependent on Amanda before the accident happens, which makes Amanda cling to her more.
Cate Kay, though a global sensation and bestselling author, has never met the press. Her real identity is known by only one person in the publishing world. But when movie star Ryan Channing asks to meet her before she plays one of the main characters in the film of her novel, she can’t resist. Her dream to become a Hollywood actress may have been lost, but she can at least meet one and spend some time with her in LA to see what her life would have been like. As for Ryan, lonely in her rising stardom, keeping her sexuality secret for now, she feels a connection with the writer that she wants to explore.
As Annie/Cass/Cate becomes embroiled and intoxicated with Ryan, her anonymity becomes harder and harder to maintain. A phone call out of the blue raises the alarm and she loses trust in those around her, going on the run once again, this time to South Carolina.
It’s a highly enjoyable, fast-paced, engaging story, with sympathetic and likeable characters and revelation after revelation. Annie’s tale shows what an insecure upbringing can do to a young woman when experiencing a moment of enormous stress, and how the kindness of strangers and friends can change the downward trajectory of a person’s life. And Fagan, an Emmy-winning journalist, provides a clear-eyed view on publishing and the way Hollywood now more than ever manipulates and restricts the lives of its up-and-coming stars when they don’t have the confidence to say no.
The Three Lives of Cate Kay, by Kate Fagan (Bloomsbury, $37.99), is out now.
