Kissin' Kate Barlow



Katherine "Kissin' Kate" Barlow is a character that appears in Louis Sachar's book Holes, as well as the movie adaptation. She is a former schoolteacher who fell in love with an african-american onion farmer named Sam. When Charles “Trout” Walker (who has a crush on her) sees the two kissing in the Green Lake schoolhouse, he leads a lynch mob to destroy the schoolhouse as well as to kill Sam, and is successfull in the latter.

Emotionally wrecked, she resolves to become an outlaw who kissed every man she killed. She became one of the most prolific outlaws during that time, robbing most, if not all major banks. However, she felt little joy in what she did. Years later, Trout and his wife tracked her down in the ruins of the old schoolhouse and demanded to know the location of her buried loot. They took her into the desert and forced her to wander for hours, although she refused to tell them the location. Barlow commited suicide by allowing a yellow-spotted lizard to bite her on the wrist and died while laughing.

While because of her status as an outlaw, Kate's status as a villain can be contested because of her tragic backstory. She is more considered an anti-hero (or maybe an anti-villain) because she has legitimate sympathy.

In the film she is portrayed by Patricia Arquette.