51 pages • 1 hour read
Crystal Smith PaulDid You Hear About Kitty Karr?
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Elise”
Content Warning: This section includes references to racism, sexism, physical assault, and rape.
Elise St. John is a well-established actress from a renowned Hollywood family. It is October 28, 2017, and Elise is at her family home, the St. John Estate in Los Angeles. The St. Johns’ next-door neighbor, legendary Hollywood actress and Oscar winner Kitty Karr Tate, recently died at the age of 81. Kitty has left her enormous fortune to Elise and her sisters, Noele and Giovanni. Elise, Noele, and Giovanni are Black, and Kitty is white; the fact that Kitty has left her fortune to the sisters, to whom she has no apparent relation, has sparked media attention:
Why had the White Hollywood icon given her fortune to the Black (‘Black’ being the key word) daughters of her costar in a sitcom that first aired almost fifty years ago? Some came right out and asked it, and social media was a cauldron of racist epithets (6).
The movie studio is worried that the news of the inheritance will bring Elise unwelcome attention and ruin her chances of winning an Oscar for her upcoming film, Drag On. Elise attends a meeting at the film studio along with her publicist and childhood friend, 