Dream Facades: The Cruel Architecture of Reality TV by Jack Balderrama Morley. Astra House, 224 pp., $28.
The reality television star Jennifer Shah, before she moved into a women’s prison in Texas, having been sentenced to six and a half years for her role in a telemarketing scheme that defrauded thousands, lived in a home she called the “Shah ski chalet.” The 9,420-square-foot imitation Swiss lodge, with its hot tub, fireplaces, exposed beams, soaring ceilings, and colossal entrance hall, became a fixture on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Shah’s mansion, which played host to various altercations and at least one rather fabulous party, helped bolster an image of wealth that later became a liability. Her arrest was shocking. But among the most shocking morsels that emerged in the fallout: The chalet was a rental. The New York Post reported in 2021 that the home was actually owned by a Texas-based LLC.
Shah responded to the rental revelation on Instagram at the time, writing, “Is this what everyone is getting their g-string up their a…
