Interview of Chloe Elisabeth Wilson by Freya Bennett
Rytual is your debut novel—congratulations! What surprised you most about the process of writing and publishing a book?
It’s far more collaborative than you think! The first part is painfully lonely, but as soon as you’ve got a team of people around you, the project becomes as much theirs as it is yours. Of course, it’s only your name on the cover, but your agent, publisher and editor all have a hand in taking the book from a giant file on your computer to a physical object that exists in the world.
Rytual is both a deliciously dark satire and a chilling thriller, what sparked the idea of blending a beauty brand with cult-like behaviour, and did you always envision it that way?
I started writing the book in 2021, while I was working for an Australian cosmetics brand with a reputation for being a bit of a cult. Although the brand I worked for was nothing like rytuał cosmetica, its internal company culture was full of quirks. In writing the novel, I wanted to push those quirks to the absolute extreme. My goal was to write something that started in a grounded, naturalistic place, and ended up somewhere totally bonkers.
These days, the beauty space is more saturated than it’s ever been. In order to break through, brands need to sell more than just a cheek tint or lip oil—they need to convince us that we’re purchasing an identity. Luna, the founder of the fictional beauty brand, is keenly aware of this. As are her disciples.
Marnie is such a compelling protagonist, adrift, vulnerable, and drawn to power. What was your process in developing her character, and how much of her voice came from personal experience or observation?
I started writing Marnie’s POV as the voice of my younger self, but as the manuscript grew and changed, so did Marnie. I wanted to create the perfect foil for Luna—someone so aware of her own magnetism, she can’t tolerate not being adored. Marnie is desperate for someone to tell her who she is, and in Luna she finds not only that, but a person who can help her construct a new sense of self.
Luna Peters is magnetic, terrifying, and strangely familiar. Was she inspired by any real-world beauty moguls or charismatic leaders?
As the book is a work of fiction, any resemblance to real people living or dead is purely coincidental… But, when writing Luna I spent a lot of time reading stories about the fall of the ‘girlboss-era’ founders. In particular, I got kind of obsessed with the allegations against Miki Agrawal, founder of Thinx period underwear. In 2017, The Cut reported that a former Thinx employee had filed a lengthy complaint against Miki for workplace sexual harassment, which included claims that on multiple occasions she dialed into meetings from the toilet.
The ‘move fast, break things’ mentality of silicon valley is endlessly fascinating to me, particularly in the age of accountability culture (Careless People, anyone?)
The line “I support women’s rights, but more importantly I support women’s wrongs” is instantly iconic. How did this phrase come to shape the themes of the book, especially around female desire, ambition, and rebellion?
It’s interesting, because that line only entered the chat as we were preparing to market the book—although, looking back, it was always my intention to write something that explored the themes it lays out. I love writing about women doing bad things!!! It’s so much more interesting than when men do bad things (which is depressing). I love stories about women going completely feral. I’d say Rytual fits neatly into that genre, if it even is a genre.
Rytual takes aim at the contradictions of modern feminism, wellness culture, and Instagram-era aesthetics. How did your background in screenwriting and pop culture research inform the novel’s sharp cultural commentary?
The cultural commentary in the novel came from me trying to write something that would make my friends laugh. I had a string of disparate jobs in my twenties (one of which was teaching pilates at a high-end Melbourne fitness studio), and as a result I spent a lot of time observing people with ‘careers’ as if they were aliens. I also found a lot of humour in many of my former workplaces, particularly when anyone took themselves or the work a bit too seriously. I wanted to make sure that the beginning of the book in particular was chock-full of humour, to get the reader to buy into the more absurd things that happen later on.
The novel is set against a backdrop of sleek branding and soft pinks, but the tone is eerie and biting. How did you approach balancing humour with horror?
I really just wanted to explore the grotesque, which can be both funny and scary. There is so much horror in the beauty industry IRL—particularly in all the ways we deny our mortality and fundamental ‘grossness’. That billionaire guy is taking plasma transfusions from his 17-year old son to look younger! Dr Barbara Sturm has been offering people blood-infused face cream for years!! Life can be just as horrifying as fiction, so it wasn’t so much a choice as a natural progression.
What’s next for you? Are you working on any more delicious novels for us to devour?
Yes! I have a new novel that will hopefully be published next year. It’s tonally similar to Rytual but the story is quite different (there are male characters and at least one of them is a good person). All I can tell you is that it’s set in Perth. Do with that information what you will.
