Saturday, April 24, 2021

Her Three Lives and Her Real Life




HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I adore Cate Holahan. She’s a brilliant author, and a wonderful pal, and a fabulously thoughtful person, and and and and... terrific in every way.


And today, I’m just gonna let her talk.


Confronting Stereotypes in My Fiction

             by Cate Holahan


I used to keep extra diapers in my glove compartment. In retrospect, it wasn’t a great place for them. The space is for documents that must be quickly accessed in an emergency. However, as a young mom driving with both a six-month-old and a toddler my most common crisis was a blowout that didn’t involve tires. Hence the nappies next to the vehicle records.

My convenient storage place became anything but one morning as I took the kids to a mommy-and-me music class a mile or so away from my West New York, NJ, apartment. Two blocks from my home, I reached a stop sign, looked both ways and, seeing it was clear, turned left. Admittedly, I did not come to a complete stop.

Police lights flashed within seconds. I pulled over, removed my license from my wallet, and withdrew the packet where I kept my vehicle registration and insurance. Unbeknownst to me, there was another envelope in the glove compartment with the new insurance card which had arrived a couple days ago — hidden behind the diapers.

The officer rapped on my window. I handed over everything while my two-year-old asked questions and the baby wailed in the back. The officer saw the expired insurance card.

“This isn’t up to date,” he said.

I apologized. “It’s probably behind this diaper explosion.” I smiled while pointing at the Pampers in hopes that he might let a frazzled mom off with a warning. “Let me check again.”

“If you don’t have it, you’ll come down to the station, and we’ll take the car and these kids.”

The words rang in my ear: We’ll take these kids.

I don’t know how often moms are threatened with having their babies seized for rolling a stop sign and showing an expired insurance card. Maybe often. Maybe not. But I did find it odd that the officer said “these” rather than “your.”

In a split second, I became aware of a few facts that I knew but, until that morning, hadn’t thought much about. The first was that New Jersey had a significant undocumented population from South America and there had been news reports of local police contacting Immigration and Customs Enforcement after catching people for traffic offenses.


The second was that I don’t look like my kids. My girls are blonde, fair-skinned, and blue-eyed like their father and my Irish American dad. I have my Jamaican mother’s brown eyes, black curly hair, and a yellow-brown complexion that deepens to caramel with a little sun exposure, and I’d been incessantly walking with the stroller since spring.

Did this officer think I was an undocumented nanny? Or was he always this aggressive with moms? Would he really take my kids?

I didn’t know the answers. But I knew I wasn’t going to go anywhere without my girls. “We live right there,” I said, pointing to the six-story building out the driver’s side window. “I get that I rolled a stop sign, and I am looking for my documents. I don’t understand why you are threatening to take my children.”

He never gave me a reason. But he left to run my license and insurance, which was up to date. His partner then returned to the window, slipped me a ticket for failing to come to a complete stop at the sign, and said that he hoped I had a nice day.


I can’t be positive that I was profiled that day. But that’s the thing about dealing with damaging stereotypes, people rarely can be certain when they’ve been targeted by one.

As a result, the onus is often unfairly placed upon the person who could be seen as fitting a negative stereotype to do everything in their power to dodge it—even when the hurtful assumption is based on perceived ethnicity and is therefore unavoidable.

It’s a minefield that I explore in my upcoming domestic suspense novel, Her Three Lives. In the book, protagonist Jade is a 32-year-old Jamaican-American blogger and designer, engaged to Greg, a 52-year-old white, well-to-do architect. She’s aware of the often rapped and sang about trope of Black women being gold diggers and is sensitive to how Greg’s adult children from his prior marriage may perceive her. This concern becomes top of mind after Greg suffers a traumatic brain injury during a home invasion and his kids seem to suspect her of being involved.


A good deal of the trouble comes from Jade’s attempt to conceal things that she fears could feed into this damaging stereotype. As a result, her awareness of the trope becomes almost as damaging as the actions of those who would make negative assumptions about her motives based on her age and race.

For days after the incident with the cops, I talked to my husband, wondering aloud if I’d misread what had happened and if there was anything that I might have done differently which would have resulted in a less harrowing experience. The diapers were removed from the glove compartment that evening. But I also began to dress more business casual with the kids in hopes of advertising that I was a working mom. At the playground, I added unnecessary suffixes to my kids’ names like, “darling daughter.” Sometimes, I dressed my kids like me.

I changed my behavior to avoid an unfair stereotype that, to this day, I can’t be sure I suffered. And that’s the pain of negative stereotypes. They become permanent, hovering dark clouds that might rain down at any moment. My darker skinned relatives worry that stereotypes concerning criminality and Black men could lead to unfair imprisonment and even death, even if they personally have not had negative encounters with law enforcement. 

My Asian American friends have expressed fears about people thinking they’re diseased or to blame for coronavirus based on their ethnicity. Early on during the pandemic, one of my Chinese American friends said she was nervous to wear a mask outside because people might assume that she was contagious and not that she, like most of us, was simply trying to be respectful of everyone else’s health.

When I write, my first goal is always to tell an entertaining, twisty story. But I also want to reflect the world we live in and, hopefully, encourage people to empathize with experiences that might be different from their own. I hope Her Three Lives might fuel a discussion of stereotypes that are out there and the constant pressure to circumvent them. 

In the end, I hope the story may encourage some people to think about the negative knee-jerk assumptions that they hold and perhaps work a little harder to remember that we’re all humans seeking to be seen as individuals.


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Thank you thank you thank you. I love Jungle Red. I love that we get to be here, together, and talk. Anyone have anything to say?

(And a copy of HER THREE LIVES to one very lucky commenter!)




In USA Today bestselling author Cate Holahan’s new thriller HER THREE LIVES a family must discover who the real enemy is after a violent home invasion breaks their trust in one another.

Jade Thompson is an up-and-coming social media influencer, she has a beautiful new home and a successful architect for a fiancé and seems to have it all. But there’s trouble behind the scenes. To her husband Greg’s children, his divorce from their mother and his new life can only mean a big mid-life crisis. To Jade, her husband’s suburban Connecticut upbringing isn’t an easy match with her Caribbean roots.

A brutal home invasion leaves Greg house-bound with a traumatic brain injury and glued to the live feeds from his ubiquitous security cameras. As the police investigate the crime and Greg’s frustration and rage grow, Jade begins to wonder what he may know about their attackers. And whether they are coming back.

As Greg watches Jade’s comings and goings, he becomes convinced that her behavior is suspicious and that she’s hiding a big secret. The more he sees, the more he wonders whether the break-in was really a random burglary. And whether he’s worth more to Jade if he were dead.



Cate Holahan is the USA Today Bestselling author
of domestic suspense novels The Widower’s Wife, One Little Secret, Lies She Told, and Dark Turns, all published by Crooked Lane Books.

Her fifth domestic suspense novel, Her Three Lives, will be published by Hachette Books' Grand Central Publishing in April 2021.

In a former life, she was an award-winning journalist, writing for CNBC, The Record, The Boston Globe, and BusinessWeek, among others. She was also the lead singer of Leaving Kinzley, an original rock band in NYC.

​She lives in NJ with her husband, two daughters, and food-obsessed dog, and spends a disturbing amount of time highly-caffeinated, mining her own anxieties for material.

​She is a member of The Author's Guild, Sisters-in-Crime, and Crime Writers of Color. She graduated from Princeton University in 2002.

Cate on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Cateholahan

Cate on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cateholahan

Cate on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cateholahan/

58 comments:

  1. Wow . . . how scary, and how awful.

    "Her Three Lives" sounds quite intriguing, Cate . . . I'm looking forward to reading it.

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  2. I know that there are many good cops serving communities, but there are way too many that use their authority to instill fear into people and who exert their control like the sting of a taser. I don't see how what that officer did to you, Cate, was anything but racial profiling. "We'll take these kids" was an obvious assumption that the children weren't yours. I hate the abuse of power that goes on in the policing business. Some years back, my son and his girlfriend were stopped by the state police, as he was going a bit faster than he should, but not much. My son is one of those drivers that doesn't get in a hurry (unlike me). There were two cars that pulled them over, and they were profiled because they were young (on their way back to college).

    Her Three Lives couldn't be a more timely read. I'm definitely adding it to my reading schedule. Thanks for sharing your experience and your new book with us, Cate.

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    1. Thanks Kathy. I am sorry to hear that happened to your son in college. He must have been nervous having two police cars for a traffic stop.

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  3. I'm sorry you had to experience that profiling, Cate, and good for you for channeling the feelings and situation into a story.

    My beloved goddaughter is quite fair and her husband is African-American (and a newly minted police officer). Their little daughter is much darker than Anna, and I wonder if she's going to be asked if Cosima is adopted as time goes by.

    Your daughters are darling, by the way, and I can see resemblances to you in both of them.

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    1. Thank you. I see it too, but a lot of folks don’t.

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  4. What a chilling experience, Cate! I would feel exactly the same, that situation was most likely profiling. What other implication could there be? My sister's grandson is biracial, and as he gets older we worry more about him. His parents and everyone else in his family are as pale as can be, as well.

    Your premise for Her Three Lives is also unsettling, which is the perfect setup for a thriller. Greg's paranoia is so real, even in your description.

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    1. Thank you so much Karen. I hope you like the book.

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  5. Welcome Cate! I had the opposite experience a year and a half ago when I was pulled over by two cops for running a stop sign (on my bicycle!) I was nervous, though they let me off with a warning. But afterward I wondered, what if I hadn't been a middle-aged white woman? Would the scene have gone differently? Such an important subject for all of us to be addressing right now! (and ps, I just yesterday came across your name at the Princeton Club--sounds like it will be a great event.)

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    1. Wow I didn’t realize cops pulled over cyclists. Were they on foot or in a car? I imagine by car would feel particularly intimidating.

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  6. Unfortunately, driving while anything but white seems to be an offense in our country, one worthy of at least a pull-over and too frequently bodily harm, up to and including murder. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

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  7. Cate, trust your instincts. In my experience, cops don't threaten to take someone's children at a traffic stop. Or insinuate that the children aren't yours! That this a##hole did so clearly telegraphs his assumptions about you.

    Greg makes assumptions about Jade based on his interpretations of her behavior and Jade does the same--talk about twisty and complicated! Now I need to know what happens!

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  8. See how no one is saying “Oh, that is so shocking—I can’t believe that!” ? So chilling and tragic.

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  9. Cate, this was an outrageous treatment from someone in a position of authority. I believe you read the situation absolutely correctly. The fact that it was the other cop who gave you the actual ticket tells me that the first one realized he had made a mistake. Too bad he wasn't big enough to admit it to your face.

    I loved the Widower's Wife and I'm looking forward to reading Her three Lives.

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    1. Thanks so much Judi. I am really happy to hear you loved The Widower’s Wife. I like to think that his partner took over because he might have realized the guy hadn’t been treating me fairly and gave me the ticket to help deescalate things.

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  10. Her Three Lives sounds amazing. I am sorry that you had to experience this awful and scary situation. I am frightened of how the world has changed so much.

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  11. What a frightening and upsetting time for you and your children. Congratulations on Her Three Lives which interests me greatly. Wishing you only lovely days ahead.

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  12. And such a chillingly written essay, too. You can just feel the tension of that. And yes, that the first man couldn’t come back and say oops, sorry. That proves it.

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    1. Hank, do you remember the Mark Harmon character in NCIS? "Never say you are sorry?"

      Diana

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    2. Oh, that is so interesting! I did a story with a law enforcement agency many years ago, and they gave me a gift of one of their T-shirts. On the front of the T-shirt it said:” deny everything.” Seriously.

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    3. Wow! Deny everything? That’s aggressive.

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    4. Agree 100%,Hank! She was most definitely targeted and profiled.

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  13. It strikes me again and again how we (POC) use externals as a shield to navigate the minefield of racism. Dress nicely at all times, whether to dentist, playground or running to the store for coffee. Drive a nice car but not too nicely. ALWAYS speak the Kings English. Be aware of surroundings at all time. It is an exhausting, though necessary minefield. Her Three Lives sounds fascinating. Best and safety.

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    1. That absolutely does sound exhausting, Rita. Navigating life today is already difficult, but that seems exponentially more so.

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    2. Thanks Rita. Best and safety to you too.

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  14. Cate, welcome to Jungle Reds and thank you for sharing your experience.

    What a frightening experience and I am grateful that you survived.

    If I can ask a delicate question, are there opportunities in your neighborhood / community to meet the local police? I wondered if it would help?

    Although I am white, I had a strange experience. I was driving home at midnight and the police car was tailgating me then pulled me over. I pointed to my ear and said I am deaf. He signed that I almost hit someone crossing the street. He signed "be careful driving". I apologized. After that experience, if I drove on that street, it was only during the day with lots of light. If I had to drive at night, then I would drive on the other street with lots of shops and street lights.

    Most of the time the police has been helpful. When I got a strange text on my mobile phone, I went to the police and they found the person who sent me a threatening text. The police sent me a text explaining that the person meant to send the text to her ex boyfriend and apologized for frightening me.

    Wishing you and your beautiful family only lovely days ahead without scary incidents.

    Your book sounds thrilling. I have seen reviews from early readers who loved your novel.

    Diana

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    1. Thanks Diana. I now live in Tenafly NJ and know the cops, and they’ve been nothing but lovely. Tenafly has a lot of community policing activities that give the residents an opportunity to interact with officers in a communal setting, which is very helpful. I also have interviewed detectives for stories who have taken time out of their busy days to make sure I get the policing right. I think community interaction really changes the game. Unfortunately, I didn’t really see those kind of activities or town days etc. in West New York, which was a more densely populated urban area than the suburb where I now live.

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  15. Cate, OMG, I know exactly how you felt. This perceived negatively needs to stop. We need to be able to be out authentic self. I hope the book spurs readers to discuss what is going on.

    Congrats on your book release.

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  16. How terrifying and how dare the officer threaten to take your children. It is vital that stories like this are shared.

    Looking forward to reading Her Three Lives.

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  17. Hi Cate! I'm sorry you had that frightening experience - I think I would have been terrified.

    My daughter, who is in college, was driving from Colorado to Texas and was pulled over by TX highway patrol because she "had braked when she saw the trooper's car" and was "probably transporting drugs from Colorado." She wasn't speeding though. He asked to search her car and she said no and eventually was let off with a warning. He made her come sit in his car during the process which was very frightening for her as he turned off his car camera. I know being a state trooper Is probably a thankless job, but this incident sounded like abuse of power, as did yours.

    Thanks for stopping by JRW, your post gave me much to think about, and I'm looking forward to reading Her Three Lives ~

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    1. Hi Cecilia, I am sure that was very frightening for her, especially when she was asked to have her car searched without provocation. Good for her for saying no and having the strength to do that. I can imagine being intimidated into saying yes.

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  18. Oh Cate. I got chills from your essay. As a white woman ive only experienced the same feeling once. When I was pulled over in rural Texas and the police demanded a bribe. British woman does not accept she was doing anything wrong, driving at the same speed as the rest of traffic.... until he told me I’d have to come back with them. I had a car full of kids. I paid the ticket

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    1. Wow. That sounds horrifying. Did they ask for a bribe in a roundabout way or say we’re they direct about it?

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  19. Isn't it disturbing that we ALL have stories?

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  20. I’m so sorry that happened to you or to anyone for that matter. Unfortunately a large percentage of police officers will intimidate you if they can get away with it. I say this from experience and because I’ve had numerous friends who are in law enforcement tell me so.

    I had a very aggressive Trooper stop me on the interstate two years ago. He was rude and accusing. I knew I hadn’t broken any law and timidly told him so. He acted like I was a bimbo and obviously he has issues with women. Fast forward to court date: I explained to the (female) judge the situation I was ticketed $385°° for. She said it sounded like I knew the law and dismissed the case.

    Big change is needed.

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    1. Good for you! That’s great that you were able to do that and defend yourself in court.

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    2. I agree with your assessment. Even if you aren't a woman of color, if you are female you are perceived to be of marginal intelligence and unable to defend yourself. Add in a car full of kids, how vulnerable is that? I understand that law enforcement is necessary, and if I did wrong, I am more than willing to admit and cooperate. But knee jerk intimidation should not be on the menu, not matter who you are.

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  21. What a scary experience! Thankfully I've only ever had one bad incident being pulled over when I was 20.
    This book sounds so intriguing. Definitely putting it on my want to read list.

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  22. Cate, Her Three Lives sounds complicated and suspenseful. Must read! It is a shame that so many people are small-minded and ignorant. My husband was at a meeting the other night and had to sit through another member's rant about how masks violate his rights, blah blah blah. I tend to examine both sides of situations involving police as my husband was in law enforcement eons ago. And now as well as then, you get bullies who like to hassle people rather than serve and protect.

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  23. This is brilliant, Cate. I believe fiction is a hugely important way to get readers to understand and empathize with the other, no matter who that other may be. Hiding a lesson about the toxic effects of systemic racism inside a thriller? Like I said, brilliant. I can't wait to read it.

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  24. Some how I lost my comment... my fingers must have pushed the wrong key.... so here I go again - I had two adopted cousins. Mark was very fair, like the rest of our family but Ken's biological parents were Lebanese and Spanish so he was darker than the rest of us. As a child, I didn't see the colors, they were just the cousins who spent five days a week in my house while their mother worked in an office. I hope he wasn't profiled as he lived into adulthood, but I'll never know, he withdrew from the family as an adult and unfortunately died at a young age of a medical condition. There are so many different types of profiling - color, gender, sexual preference, religion, body type, education.... the list seems to be unending and it's sad.

    I'm sorry the police treated you poorly, Cate. As a young mother, it must have been frightening on so many levels. The fact that the partner brought your citation must, some how, prove that the original officer realized he made a mistake but wasn't brave enough to admit it.

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  25. AND THE WINNERS of REMEMBRANCE from yesterday are:
    Karen in Ohio
    Coralee
    Dru Ann

    Message me your addresses!

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  26. Your recounting of that event is bone-chilling and makes me embarrassed to be a part of the human race. Similar story happened to me while living in Mexico.
    They tried to take my car,
    my son and his friend. I locked the doors, and called a friend. We spent 6 hours at the police dept., they did keep my car for several weeks.
    This book sounds SO, SO good!

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    1. Not sure why it posted me as "unknown"!
      This is Tonni Callan
      Admin on A Novel Bee (& more) and we would love to do a feature or giveaway of your book anytime!

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    2. Oh, YAY! SO pleased to connect you two--let me know how I can help! Bzz bzzz bzzzzz!

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  27. This sounds fantastic! I love hearing about new authors. Thanks for sharing your personal story. Stereotyping is dangerous.

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  28. Wow, that personal story is chilling, Cate, and what a launchpad for a novel. I can't wait to read Her Three Lives.

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  29. The book is intriguingly twisty . . . your experience makes me furious. Threatening someone's children is as low as can be, no excuse for that. Yes, profiling. A friend, white, in a suit, didn't have his LICENSE and was told to just bring it by the station the next day. Your expired insurance card still had the right policy #, easy to check. I've been seeing posts about stopping to witness police interactions with POC, and while in the past I'd I've felt it was nosy to stop, now it seems it could be saving a life.

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  30. Question: Cate and Hank, did you meet originally as journalists? I think, Cate, that you said you were a journalist in Boston? Or did I get that wrong.
    Our stories have such similar fear. My first husband was a Vietnam vet with PTSD and because we were counterculture, we did not look like everyone in NH. The police did not treat us well and my first husband did not respond well.
    I'm so excited for your novel, Cate. Can't wait to read it! Congratulations.

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  31. New author to me! Very interesting posting today!

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  32. Being a 1st generation American to Trinidadian parents and after inheriting my father's light skin I have always felt displaced in a country that I was born.
    I was never "black" enough to be accepted by my black peers and to everyone else I was put in the box of being either mixed, Hispanic, or Asian because for some reason no one seemed to know where Trinidad was on a map.
    Thank you for sharing your experience. It is a nice reminder that there are other people who have had either the exact or similar feelings that I have had or gone thru.
    I just bought the ebook online and can't wait to give it a read!

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