The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Paul, Crystal Smith. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? Henry Holt and Company, 2023.

Did You Hear About Kitty Karr is a novel of literary and historical fiction written by Crystal Smith Paul. A large part of the novel is historical fiction set mainly in California during the time when Jim Crow laws were negatively affecting Black people in the South. The rest of the novel takes place in the twenty-teens and focuses on the modern-day characters coming to terms with who Kitty Karr is and what that means for them. The story is told from the third person perspective following three primary characters.

At the beginning of the novel, the St. John sisters have inherited Kitty Karr’s sizable estate, and Elise Karr is responsible for executing the estate. Kitty has left explicit instructions for everything. Sarah, Elise’s mother, seems to have ambivalent feelings about Kitty. During Elise’s eulogy of Kitty, she says that Kitty was the closest thing she ever had to a mother, and she says this in front of her own mother who was not around a lot. No one understands why the wealthy St. John sisters have inherited the state, and there are racial undertones to the confusion.

The historical fiction part of the novel starts out with the story of Hazel. She is a Black girl whose family has died. She leaves town and begins working on the estate of the very wealthy Lakes family. While working, she gets raped by the Lakes’s son, and she gives birth to Mary Magdalene who is light skinned. When Mary graduates from high school, her mother sends her to California where Mary is to spend her life as a white woman thanks to her light skin.

Mary goes to live with her childhood friend, Lillian, who is also passing as white. Mary takes the name Kitty, and Lillian goes by Emma Karr. They both work in the film industry, and Kitty eventually becomes the assistant to the studio head, Nathan Tate. They date and eventually get married. When Kitty becomes pregnant, her midwife, Nellie, induces her while Nathan is away. Sarah, the baby, is dark-skinned, so the two women pretend that Sarah died, and Nellie raises her as her own.

Kitty makes a name for herself in Hollywood. She is an actress, but she also performs many of the writing duties as she is more proficient at this than Nathan is. She becomes involved with women at the Blair House who attempt to make life better for Black people. Kitty uses her position of influence to help women of color. Eventually Nathan learns of this, but they manage to avoid legal repercussions and to keep Kitty’s race a secret. She dies as a white woman.

Elise learns Kitty’s story and that the woman is really her grandmother. It then becomes her job to decide whether or not to tell the world that Kitty was Black. Her mother does not want her to. There are also possibly financial and legal repercussions to such an admittance. In the end, during her Oscar acceptance speech, Elise tells the world that she, a Black woman, is Kitty Karr’s granddaughter.