Bad Mormon: A Memoir

by Heather Gay

Overview

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Named one of Entertainment Tonight’s Best Celebrity Memoirs of 2023
As seen in The New York Times, People, The Cut, Vulture, The Daily Beast, Today, Bustle, Us Weekly, Life & Style, and Interview

“No stone goes unturned” (People) in this memoir about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay’s departure from the Mormon Church, and her unforeseen success in business, television, and single motherhood.

Straight off the slopes and into the spotlight, Heather Gay is famous for speaking the gospel truth. Whether as a businesswoman, mother, or television personality, she is unafraid to blaze a new trail, even if it means losing family, friends, and her community.

Born and bred to be devout, Heather based her life around her faith. She attended Brigham Young University, served a mission in France, and married into Mormon royalty in the temple. But her life as a good Mormon abruptly ended when she lost the marriage and faith that she had once believed would last forever.

With writing that is beautiful, sad, funny, and true, Heather recounts the difficult discovery of the darkness and damage that often exists behind a picture-perfect life, while examining the nuanced relationship between duty to self and duty to God. “An eye-opening firsthand account of religious indoctrination told with candor and sincerity” (Interview magazine), Bad Mormon is an unfiltered look at the religion that broke her heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982199531
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	02/07/2023
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	11,209
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Heather Gay is a star of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and the founder of Beauty Lab + Laser, an innovative cosmetic medical practice based in Salt Lake City with its own behind-the-scenes podcast Live Love Lab. A graduate of Brigham Young University, Heather lives in Salt Lake City with her three daughters.

Editorial Reviews

10/24/2022

In this spicy debut, Gay, a fan favorite on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, recounts her life and how it was changed by being cast in the reality show. Born in Carmel, Calif., to devout Mormon parents, Gay moved with her family to Utah before her freshman year at Brigham Young University. For most of her adulthood, Gay writes, she didn’t question her faith, but after her decades-long marriage ended in divorce, she felt isolated from her community and realized how Mormonism encouraged its followers to “suffer silently.” When Gay was asked to join the Real Housewives franchise, though, it was a “rebirth”: “For the first time in my life, someone wanted me for all that I brought to the table.” By the show’s second season, Gay had left the church and formed bonds with new friends and supporters. Gay’s narrative is by turns cheeky (“In the name of the Father, the Son, and Andy Cohen”) and reflective (“There is real sorrow for the lost years and a general heaviness that weighs on my heart when I think of the past”), and even when discussing her struggles, she writes with self-deprecating humor. Real Housewives disciples will relish these unfiltered revelations. Agent: Steve Troha, Folio Literary. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

03/10/2023

Gay ranks as one of the most popular stars of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Her charismatic personality shines on the TV show. That same charm is also abundantly evident in her memoir. In 30 short chapters, readers get to know Gay in ways that her TV audience didn't and likely never could. The author portrays herself as a hardworking missionary who occasionally goes against expectations. The book shows her pain of once being stuck in a marriage that was more of an obligation than a pleasure. The work notably documents the emotions and trauma she endured when she left a religion, the Church of Latter-day Saints, that had formed much of her identity. She now sparkles as a savvy, smart businesswoman. Perhaps most importantly, her constant love as a mother of three daughters is foregrounded. VERDICT Recommended for fans of the show, of course. This memoir will also appeal to readers who enjoy reading about women successfully navigating adulthood and motherhood.—David Azzolina

Library Journal

2022-12-14
A reality TV personality recounts an upbringing in a religion that she finally rejected.

“Everything in my life confirmed my identity, my faith, and my future. Until it didn’t.” It’s a simple declaration but hard won. Gay grew up in a Mormon family so deeply rooted in the faith that they were enrolled as “born in the covenant,” meaning that her parents were married in the temple. (“Born in the covenant: Mormon flex,” she writes with typically arch humor.) Her family wasn’t necessarily doctrinaire, but they were undoubtedly observant, while Gay was a born questioner and explorer. A prevailing metaphor comes early on when, forbidden to leave her yard as a very young girl, she opens the gate and is locked out, portending things to come. After typical adolescent experimentation, she was haunted by the thought that her parents would believe her to be “a bad seed.” The author structures her life story according to all the ways she failed, sometimes in her eyes but mostly in the eyes of others: bad daughter, bad missionary, bad wife, bad Mormon. As she reveals without sensationalism, it was her husband who failed, and it was the church that demanded that women accept subservient status and sexual violence. “We are taught to say no to a lot of things outside of our faith,” she writes, “but inside the faith, we are told only to bow our heads and say yes.” Eventually, a fellow Mormon woman advised her, with regard to that bad marriage, to “run, and don’t look back.” So she did, becoming the “bad ass” of the last part of her book, when she joined the cast of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and renounced the church “in the name of the Father, the Son, and Andy Cohen.”

A thoughtful, smart, and funny handbook for apostates.

Kirkus Reviews

"A spicy debut...by turns cheeky and reflective...Real Housewives disciples will relish these unfiltered revelations." —Publishers Weekly

“A thoughtful, smart, and funny handbook for apostates.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Frank, funny, and irreverent, Bad Mormon captures the spirit of the woman millions have come to love/hate on TV. Even those unfamiliar with the show will be fascinated by her detailed descriptions… The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is a TV sensation, and Gay is the breakout star, so expect a lot of interest in her story of her religious journey.” —Booklist

“Gay’s book is raw and revealing, an eye-opening firsthand account of religious indoctrination told with candor and sincerity.” —Interview Magazine

“Gay’s book has major stakes: In tracing her journey from aspiring housewife to capital-H Housewife, she writes about Mormonism’s sacred rituals in manner that is not only grounds for excommunication in the church but also risks ostracization from the entire community she held dear for so long.” —Bustle

“[A] confident debut.” —The Daily Beast

“No stone goes unturned.” —PEOPLE

“[Gay’s] charismatic personality shines on the show. That same charm is also abundantly evident in her memoir…Recommended for fans of the show, of course. This memoir will also appeal to [those] who enjoy reading about women successfully navigating adulthood and motherhood.” —Library Journal

“Gay’s story and internal battle will likely resonate with anybody who grew up having a complicated relationship with organized religion.” —The Cut

“Heather Gay’s Bad Mormon pulls back the curtain on LDS – and – Real Housewife-hood.” —New York Magazine, Approval Matrix

From the Publisher