Interview With CJ Leede, Author ‘American Rapture’

One of the best books I’ve read in the last year is CJ Leede’s Maeve Fly. A female serial killer à la American Psycho? Sign me the fuck up. So when CJ’s new book, American Rapture, was announced, I was overjoyed and thought to myself, I need to interview her!

A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust. Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin.

To celebrate the release of her new book, I chatted with CJ about her inspiration, casting her main characters, Tori Amos, horror movies, and more!

PopHorror: I am really excited to talk to you today. I loved Maeve Fly and American Rapture was so good.

CJ Leede: Thank you! I’m so glad.

PopHorror: What sparked the idea for American Rapture?

CJ Leede: This book I’ve been working on on and off for about 10 years. I grew up Catholic, not in a really strict way like Sophie and not in a really sheltered way like Sophie, but enough that a lot of the ideas taught to us in church really terrified me. But additionally, just kind of sat wrong. I remember one of the Sunday school teachers telling us that little girls are born into more sin than little boys.

PopHorror: Wow!

CJ Leede: I just thought that can’t be right. And yet, that was the idea that was reinforced again and again. I think these were things that have sat with me into adulthood, and I just really wanted to work through them for myself and it’s become this really cool beautiful thing where actually I’ve connected with so many readers who are like, “I grew up in this denomination. I grew up this way.” It’s been this very cool, collective healing experience. I don’t think it’s because I’m smart or anything, or did even well, I think it’s just because these ideas are difficult to grapple with and just anybody talking about them is kind of nice for everybody a little bit who’s gone through these kinds of things. That’s where it all started.

PopHorror: I also grew up Catholic. Not strict at all. Nothing like Sophie. I went to Catholic school kindergarten through 12th grade, but you would never know it by knowing me today. I like hearing other people who challenged what they learned in the religion and who questioned it because there were a lot of people I knew when I was a teenager that didn’t question it and just went along with everything.

CJ Leede: Yeah!

PopHorror: I’m very fortunate that one of my best friends is a girl I went to high school with – we actually reconnected in our 30s – and she also dropped out of the faith. That’s something that makes me realize I’m not alone in the way that I thought.

CJ Leede: I love that!

PopHorror: Was there anything that you were adamant about leaving in the final draft, no matter what?

CJ Leede: Oh, what a good question! I don’t know if I can say, but it was what we were talking about before, which is very spoilery. I felt like what I was trying to say with this book is that we, as a sort of puritanically founded largely Christian society nation, are really focused on this one thing, which is sexuality and bodies and shame and just sex in general. That thing does not need to be a complicated thing. The only rule, in my opinion, should be, do you have consent? Anything else is just not that important or complicated or crazy. And at the same time, as we as a country are so hyper fixated on this one thing, we tell young women and young people of all types that it’s their greatest value item but also their greatest sin and shame. At the same time, anybody we love can die any day. There’s inequality. There’s war. There’s dark shit in this world that we should be looking at, that we should be focusing on, and if we spend our lives just thinking about stuff that doesn’t matter, it doesn’t make us or anybody or any creature we love any less mortal, and we’re going to miss out. I think that’s what I was trying to say and that’s why I did take certain things in the book to certain extremes because it’s just this thing does not fucking matter and there are things that matter so much that we’re not looking at. That was kind of why. But I don’t know, I talked around that answer, but you know what I’m saying.

PopHorror: Yes. I 100% agree. There’s so much going on in the world right now that people should focus on that are so much worse.

CJ Leede: Absolutely. It’s insane. And we’re mad at people for entering into loving relationships that don’t hurt anybody.

PopHorror: Yeah, it’s none of your business.

CJ Leede: 100%

PopHorror: What is your creative process when starting a new book?

CJ Leede: My favorite phase is the idea phase and that’s when I’m going for runs and walks and kind of moving through the world with gears turning in my head and I’ve got a notebook with me at all times. The ideas are just flying. That phase can last a long time, and then usually I like to assign all of my main characters a want, a wound, a fear, usually an animal that they would identify with or an astrological sign or something that I can get a sense of them. Put a playlist together and then I plot out the book on paper and then I just go.

PopHorror: Oh, what’s on your playlist for this one?

CJ Leede: I’ve got it online. I’ll send it to you. What I really wanted to do with this book is kind of what like a lot of female rock musicians did for me and so many people in the 90s and early 2000s so I’ve got Fiona Apple, I’ve got Tori Amos, I’ve got Alanis Morrissette, I’ve got Sinéad O’Connor and I think those were women who taught me that it was okay to be angry but also feel things in a very big way. And also, who were really singing about a lot of these same kinds of ideas and themes. What do we do with guilt and shame? Alanis Morrissette even has a song, Forgiven, that’s really all about church. Amazing song. Tori’s got multiple songs about it but Crucify is an all-time great. Maybe the best, who knows? That’s largely what’s on the playlist.

PopHorror: Yes, please! All my favorite things. Tori Amos is my all-time favorite singer. I’ve been listening to her since I was 14. You even quoted my favorite song by her at the beginning of the book.

CJ Leede: I love that! I actually originally titled the book… Well, it had a really bad original title but then the working title for a very long time was Precious Things because I was actually at a Tori show in Brooklyn and I thought she was going to play Silent All These Years, and then it was Precious Things instead. I remember having a revelation moment and I was like, oh my god, this has to be somehow in the book. This is what I’m trying to say. So very cool. She’s the queen.

PopHorror: I love this so much. She really is. I can’t talk to you and not mention Maeve Fly. There’s so much buzz about that book. I see it everywhere. People are loving it. I read it on a whim and don’t regret it. Between these two books, who was your favorite character to write?

CJ Leede: Oh, my god, what a hard question! Honestly, I had a lot of fun with the director in Maeve. Some of the side characters – like the bartender – really like writing. Fake Johnny Depp, the Johnny Depp impersonator. I always love writing side characters, but Cleo might be my favorite character I’ve written as a human being. I aspire to be as cool as Cleo one day.

PopHorror: I think she’s the teacher that a lot of young women could benefit from.

CJ Leede: I hope so! I feel like that’s what I was trying to do, is just say what did I need to hear when I was younger? I did take 10 years writing this book on and off. When I started this, what were things that I couldn’t quite access? I’m just in my 30s but those were the things that I wish I had been told and so I told them to Sophie through Cleo.

PopHorror: If American Rapture was made into a movie or series, who would you want cast as your main characters?

CJ Leede: Oh my gosh. The problem is, I don’t know any young actors. I don’t know. I would just say anyone who has a real fighting spirit, I would be super stoked. The big discussion is usually who would play Maeve? But I think that’s almost easier because that whole world is so kind of like LA. It feels like this American Rapture world is removed from all of that in my mind.

PopHorror: Who would you want cast as Maeve?

CJ Leede: I think there are a lot of great actresses who could do it. I’ve always thought Emma Roberts would be great. I think Julia Garner would be great. Sosie Bacon read the audiobook. You just never… I don’t know. I think there are a lot of great options.

PopHorror: I love Sosie Bacon. 

CJ Leede: She’s great, isn’t she?

PopHorror: Yes! What is up next for you?

CJ Leede: I’m working on a Colorado cannibal ghost dual POV book that is coming out probably in Spring of ‘26.

PopHorror: That sounds interesting! You have me intrigued.

CJ Leede: I’m glad! It’s my favorite book yet that I’ve gotten to work on so I’m very, very excited.

PopHorror: Just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?

CJ Leede: Oh, man. I rewatch IT all the time. The new one, Part One. It’s weirdly a comfort movie for me. I think visually it’s very beautiful and it just brings me ultimate joy. But my favorite movie of all time is Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Thank you so much to CJ for taking the time to chat with us. American Rapture is available now at your favorite bookstore.