The Three Lives of Cate Kay

Throughout the novel, the primary conflicts are born of the main characters’ failure to integrate the public and private versions of themselves, and both Annie and Ryan embody the many difficulties that this situation poses. They both have careers that thrust them into the public eye, and they both create public personas to shield their private lives from scrutiny. This approach comes at a cost for them both, and they eventually seek ways to narrow the gap between their public personas and their private realities.

Ryan’s career as an actress stands as a prime example of this dynamic, for she is required to “perform” whether she is on the set or going about her private business. Ryan’s public persona is that of a glamorous movie star who is sophisticated and poised, but this projection has little to do with her authentic inner life. Privately, she sees herself as shy, awkward, and even a bit nerdy. For many years, Ryan also hides the fact that she is a lesbian, even going on fake dates with male co-stars. However, in Chapter 52, Ryan explicitly associates the gap between her public image and her private reality with the broader loss of her authentic identity, stating, “I’m not even an expert on myself” (223). Eventually, the gap between her interiority and her public façade grows too burdensome, and she gives a very honest interview to Jake Fischer in which she says she is tired of her life being “half performance, half genuine” (232). She reveals that she is a lesbian and even obliquely refers to being in love with Annie. Even though she is worried that these revelations might damage her career, she is willing to take this risk in order to reclaim her true identity.

While Ryan’s struggle with this issue results in two diametrically opposed personas, one that is authentic and one that is contrived, Annie creates not just one but two personas: Cass Ford and Cate Kay. While this strategy offers her a double shield, it also results in a years-long process of fragmentation as she grows increasingly disconnected from her own identity. Her decision to live as Cass Ford after she leaves Bolton Landing when she is 18 feels self-protective to her; it is a chance to reinvent herself and gain some distance from the troubles that “Annie” experienced. Unfortunately, maintaining this identity requires burying her real self along with her past, and she ends up living in limbo for years, depending on Sidney’s money, education, and power to maintain a separate legal identity and life in New York.

Her creation of “Cate Kay” splits her identity even further, like the fractured reflection in Brando’s mirror. Ultimately, Annie grows to believe that the small writing shed outside her Charleston home is the only place in the world where her identities are unified; she feels that the Cate Kay part of her identity is “mythological,” and she often considers herself not through her own eyes, but through the imagined gaze of other people. When she finally tells the woman in the Charleston coffee shop that she is Cate Kay, she knows that this is a small step in the right direction. However, it is not until she finally returns to Bolton Landing—the wellspring of all her troubles—that she truly begins to reconstitute the disparate parts of herself. She begins using the name “Annie” again and fully renounces the “alternate universe” in which she was Cass Ford and Cate Kay. When she thinks, “How sublime the feeling, to be known again” (280), her effusive sentiment articulates just how fully lost she has been and how grateful she is to have returned to the most authentic version of herself.

Throughout the novel, several characters attempt to manipulate the people they supposedly love, but it is clear that their manipulations come at a steep cost, both to themselves and to those whom they try to control. The most prominent avatar of this dynamic is Sidney. In the very beginning of her relationship with Annie, Sidney ignores clear signals that Annie is in distress and needs time to heal before engaging in a relationship. Instead, she pressures Annie into confessing the details of her past and then uses this information to isolate and control the years-younger, considerably less sophisticated woman. Her decision to claim that Amanda is dead constitutes a cold-blooded and selfish attempt to maintain full control over Annie’s life and emotional landscape. By denying Annie the opportunity to heal the mistakes of her past, Sidney effectively hijacks Annie’s present and attempts to claim her future as well. In the doomed couple’s new life together in New York City, Annie depends on Sidney’s money and education to maintain a secure and stable world, glossing over the fact that this existence is entirely built upon lies.

Later, as Annie grows older and more confident and begins to explore the world beyond her unhealthy relationship, Sidney tries to reassert her control by taking over management of Annie’s writing career and correspondence. Likewise, when Annie escapes to Los Angeles anyway, Sidney takes her manipulation to new heights by paying someone to threaten Annie and compel her to return to New York, terrified of exposure. Although Sidney does not understand that she herself has created and perpetuated the toxic dynamics that dominate her relationship with Annie, she certainly feels the pain of these decisions, for she knows that Annie does not love her. However, instead of honestly coming to terms with her own role in this charade, she clings to her rationalization that everything she has done is meant to benefit Annie, and she persists in casting herself as the victim.

Unlike Sidney’s patterns, Amanda’s manipulations are relatively benign, but even so, she must ultimately come to terms with the ways in which her youthful attempts at control have impacted Annie, and her narration makes it clear that she feels ashamed of her past behavior. When the two friends are young, Amanda loves Annie intensely but platonically, and when she realizes that Annie feels romantic love for her, she cannot bear the idea of losing Annie’s attention to another woman someday. She therefore leads Annie on, using calculated acts of physical affection such as lingering hugs and gentle touches in order to keep Annie close. However, she always keeps up the pretense that she does not know what effect she is having on Annie’s frame of mind. She knows that her behavior is wrong and that it hurts Annie, and this is why she reacts so vehemently to Kerri’s innocent questioning on the night of their prom. When even this is not enough to keep Annie focused on her, Amanda begins playing up the qualities that she believes are most attractive to Annie, such as her physical daring, and this approach leads directly to the accident that paralyzes Amanda and sends Annie running into an isolated future. It takes time for Amanda to admit her role in Annie’s decisions, but once she does, her anger about Annie’s spontaneous abandonment fades. She realizes that Annie, too, has suffered, and that much of this suffering is a direct result of Amanda’s choices. Amanda’s eventual reconciliation with Annie can only come after Amanda has grown to understand that their bond will flourish best when she does not try to control Annie’s feelings.