Heather Gay invites readers to delight in her debut fiction novel — a body-horror thriller that questions the pursuit of perfection
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay may be a bestselling memoirist, but it’s fiction that has been calling to her since high school. On October 6, Gay’s teenage dream will be realized with the release of her fiction debut, Eternal Glow, a campy body-horror thriller described as Big Little Lies meets The Substance. In the book, which centers on Celeste, a married Mormon mom of one whose perfect life is rapidly falling apart, Gay takes the themes that make up much of her life and spins them into a deliciously satirical tale chock full of Easter eggs for RHOSLC fans, readers who identify as part of the unofficial Bad Mormon club, and anyone who gets what it can be like to live in the state known as the epicenter of Mormonism.
“I’ve written everything interesting about me,” Gay says in a virtual interview with Salt Lake magazine. “Now, I want to take it and amp it up a little and make it a gory thriller. They say the best therapy is immersion therapy. This is my immersion therapy to the beauty culture, the Mormon culture, friendship, drama culture — all of it. To put it into fiction was a thrill, but it’s also a great read. So it’s a win for me all around.”
Through Celeste, Gay unabashedly examines the darker side of the pursuit of perfection and creatively explores the consequences — both psychological and physical — that could come along with it. Despite her success as co-founder of Beauty Lab + Laser, Gay writes Celeste’s physical downfall through the experience of participating in beta phases of the Eternal Glow treatment, offered by the fictional med spa, Skinsational.
“There is no division of labor or identity with this. It definitely draws from real-life experiences and real characters in my life,” Gay says. “Beauty Lab + Laser was born out of this critical eye I’ve had for the medical industry and places like Skinsational. This is how I make my living, with wanting to achieve perfection and Botox and fillers and all of the things. But the dark side of that is when you don’t know and trust the people that you are giving your physical face — your identity — and your money to. While it seems like I am attacking the very hand that feeds me, I’m actually celebrating what makes Beauty Lab + Laser so successful as a med spa — and letting women know that there is a shadow side. You do have to be careful.”
Gay’s approach to Eternal Glow tracks with her approach to being in the spotlight: strategic and fun. Her writing easily settles readers into the world of camp, shedding light on the internal monologues of fictional characters who could effortlessly pass off as real — and Gay fully expects readers to try and figure out what real-life women they might be based off of. But stripping RHOSLC and Gay’s celebrity presence from the novel, Eternal Glow takes a digestible approach to social commentary — even in its irony, which is probably one of the best things about the project. Gay invites us all to stop taking ourselves so seriously for a minute by terrifying us into imagining what could happen if things go really, horrifically wrong in the pursuit of physical perfection.
“It preys on all of our vulnerabilities as women, especially in a community where you are stripped of power and authority, and the only authority you have is over what you look like, how men respond to you, and how your friends respect you,” Gay says. “That’s what makes this such a thriller: it preys on hot-girl secrets and at what cost.”
Ahead of the official release day, Gay begins her book tour in Salt Lake on October 4 with the King’s English at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Fans and readers can get their copies early and dive right into Celeste’s world, where Gay says readers will become uncomfortably aware of the word “wriggling.”
Amid the book tour and the recently aired season 7 of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Gay is writing her next book, which she teases will have everything from horror to Mormon missionaries and even some steamy sex scenes. In the meantime, with spooky season upon us, Gay advises readers to settle in with Celeste and her frenemy, Lydia, and prepare for a wild ride sure to make you laugh and be creeped out all at the same time.
“[The release] is right before Halloween,” Gay says. “It’s well-timed for a cup of tea, a Lola blanket, and all of your body fears.”
Get the latest on the Arts and Culture scene in and around Utah. And while you’re here, subscribe and get six issues of Salt Lake magazine, your curated guide to the best of life in Utah.
