(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "REAL HOUSEWIVES OF SALT LAKE CITY")
HEATHER GAY: I don't kiss and tell. I publish and sell.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Author Heather Gay has been a longtime fan favorite on "The Real Housewives Of Salt Lake City." Her funny, sharp observations have shown us what's under the perfect veneer of Salt Lake Mormon-dom. Her best selling memoir, "Bad Mormon," made her plenty of friends and enemies in Salt Lake City.
Now she's back with a new book. This time, fiction. "Eternal Glow" is a thriller about a Mormon woman named Celeste who wants to look perfect - dewy skin, slim figure, gorgeous family. She tries a cosmetic procedure called Eternal Glow and then slowly discovers its gruesome side effects. Heather Gay joins us now. Welcome.
GAY: Hi, thanks for having me.
RASCOE: Celeste is a stay-at-home mom with a young daughter, and she's just starting to see the tiniest evidence of aging. But what makes her so desperate to, I guess, look better that she's willing to do this kind of off-brand procedure in an unmarked house with this doctor...
GAY: (Laughter).
RASCOE: ...She doesn't know? Like, what drives her to that extent?
GAY: It's all about belonging for Celeste, and she's also pressured by her friends. Her flaws are pointed out by her friends, and she knows that her most important thing is to be seen as beautiful, righteous, happy and to be accepted by her friend group. And when they tell her the latest and greatest, she is unduly influenced by the desire to keep her husband happy, have another baby, receive status in the church. And these seem like childish desires, but they are the core values that, like, guide Celeste's life.
RASCOE: Well, talk to me about this friend group because (laughter) they are kind of the meanest group of besties, right? Like...
GAY: Yes.
RASCOE: What were you trying to illustrate here about female friendships? And I mean, do you think this is kind of a universal thing?
GAY: Well, listen, I mean, it was a campy, satirical thing. So I wanted to take the most caricaturized versions of friends that we've all known. It's not important for us to understand what's motivating them. It's just important for us to see how they're the nicest mean people you'd ever meet.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
GAY: They say that a lot about Mormons because we're really good at performative kindness and performative inclusivity. But when it comes down to it, we are very insular, we're very exclusive, and we're very closed off. And that type of mentality trickles down through the culture to this tiny group of four friends, you know? I mean, these dialogues are exaggerated versions of conversations that I have overheard and that I have participated in. You know, I've been in the beauty industry for 10 years. You know, I started a med spa.
RASCOE: And that's the thing. You are also pulling from your experience at owning a med spa. So you saw women kind of like this. Were you shocked by what women in the community were getting done?
GAY: No, I wasn't shocked, and I was thrilled that they were getting things done. I mean, they were coming to my business. This is my livelihood. But any woman or any customer who's ever sat in, like, a procedure chair and seen a needle coming at their face has felt the dark thoughts of what if? You know, what if I can't trust this person injecting me? What if it goes terribly, terribly wrong, and especially when everything that you love and have is at stake?
RASCOE: Well, I know you said that this book is meant to be, like, a campy, satire send-up. I mean, I can't think of anything really more campy and, like, over-the-top than, like, reality TV, right? Like...
GAY: Yeah, exactly.
RASCOE: Were you also drawing from the "Real Housewife" experience?
GAY: Oh, absolutely. I mean, they say write what you know. For the last seven years, I've been embroiled in drama and in this group of tight-knit women that are friends on the surface, but there's conflict brewing right underneath at all times and competition. And so of course I drew from that. And then even on a funnier level, like, there are easter eggs for "Housewives," but Salt Lake City housewives have a communal fear of the black Sprinter van.
RASCOE: Someone got pulled over by the police. Did that happen in one of them (laughter)?
GAY: Well, not pulled over. Many bad things have happened to us in Sprinter vans, yes - swarmed by Homeland Security, FBI, local police, NYPD. They were looking for one of our castmates. We've had horrible fights in Sprinter vans where we've been trapped, you know, at each other's throats. So I made sure that one of the villains in "Eternal Glow" is the black Sprinter van.
RASCOE: And there's also a point where someone says, you smell like hospital, which is an insult said to someone on "The Housewives Of Salt Lake City."
GAY: Yes, the classic (laughter) Mary Cosby line.
RASCOE: So you have a lot of fans. Why do you think that they have so connected to you and so connected to your story?
GAY: I think there's a big community of my fan base that are former Mormons or Mormon-adjacent and fascinated by it, and "Bad Mormon" really connected to a lot of people and taught me, like, the power of telling your story. So when I had the opportunity to write fiction, the beauty industry is something I've wanted to write about. And then the community and culture of Salt Lake City and Mormonism is something that I wanted to add into it.
RASCOE: Looking at the Mormon women in this book, you really don't get into the reasons that they would seek out the faith. It seems like it's just women who are talking about their good looks as evidence of God's grace. Like, is there faith in these women's hearts?
GAY: That's such a great question because I can only speak from my own experience. And for me, faith was driving the way I participated in the culture. And the culture kind of dictates that, if you look good, you must be righteous. You know, appearances matter when you're living in a really patriarchal society and culture where women don't have control over anything other than, like, their families and how they look. And they're at the mercy of, you know, their husbands and their church leaders.
RASCOE: What do you say to those people who say, look, you know, this is our faith, what you're writing is not a good representation of it?
GAY: Well, they hate it, but guess what? It was my faith, too. I get more people laughing and saying they see themselves, their friends and their families because in "Bad Mormon," I skewered the religion and my departure from it. But in this book, I'm skewering really a specific group of Mormon women and the funny way that they conduct their lives. You know, it's much more surface level, and so it's not nearly as deeply offensive.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: That's author and entrepreneur and reality TV star Heather Gay. Her new book, "Eternal Glow," is out now. Thank you so much.
GAY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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