That Demon Life
New edition coming October 2024!
Winner of the Gival Press Novel Award, Lowell Mick White's That Demon Life is a comic tale of lust and laziness, of crime and competence—and incompetence. It's the story of Linda Smallwood, a sometimes depressed, always difficult, Austin criminal defense lawyer, who finds that her life mirrors what the Rolling Stones call "that demon life." In the course of a grueling week, Linda encounters a parade of slackers, thugs, and eccentrics—hookers, cab drivers, and political fixers of various stripes—a world with echoes of A Confederacy of Dunces. She loses her job, falls back into a “romance” with her presently married ex-fiancé, and persuades her best friend to seduce and blackmail the judge she holds responsible for her misfortunes. Linda’s absurd, dislocated, and outlandish life reflects the rhythms and the culture of the city whose slogan is “Keep Austin Weird.” Indeed, she does. Ultimately, when Linda confronts her nemesis, whom she then attempts to rescue, she discovers that the joys of love and revenge are not all they’re alleged to be. As the Stones famously say, “It’s just that demon life has got you in its sway….”
Lowell Mick White: "My main inspiration for this novel was/is Austin, Texas--the life I lived there, the lives I witnessed there. I wanted to write something that would reflect the craziness and dislocation of the city and of the people who live in it. On a more basic level, I had two literary models: A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole, and "The Flea Circus," the opening novella in Billy Lee Brammer's The Gay Place. Toole's novel, I'd argue, is America's greatest comic novel, and I've always been impressed by Toole's ability to interrogate American society through the point of view of the wonderful Ignatius J. Reilly. "The Flea Circus" depicts Austin political and social life of the early 1960s. When I first read it, in 1979, there were still echoes of that earlier time floating around--I could feel the rhythms of the book and the city, sense them. That version of Austin is totally lost now, of course, as is the version of Austin where I came of age in the late 70s and early 80s. What has evolved is something altogether different and dynamic and dramatic and crazy and new, and it is this contemporary Austin that I tried to capture in That Demon Life."
Praise for That Demon Life:
“The slacker blonde has found her muse! In the hilariously disinclined attorney Linda, a no-account Austinite whose idea of legal research is a rerun of Law & Order, White has given us a transgendered update of the madcap A Confederacy of Dunces. Indeed, you could say Dunces is done one better in That Demon Life, because this swift-moving new picaresque of work-avoidance takes us into the realm of sex. Amid the complications that flower so colorfully out of the death of Linda’s pet bird—you’ll scent a fresh and nutty bloom every few pages—we are treated to the kind of lust-besotted escapades that leave a county judge stumbling naked through the urban sprawl, poking up tabloid writers rather than Lone Star rattlesnakes. Amid all the unhinged carrying on, I’ll be darned if our Linda’s take-it-or-leave-it blasé doesn’t prove a moral center, and deliver a riotous epiphany.”
—John Domini, author of A Tomb on the Periphery and Earthquake I.D.
“That Demon Life has got Austin in its sway, or at least this novel's motley crew of characters. A horny judge, a defense attorney with an attitude, an entourage of petty criminals, a dating service maven, a self made internet porn star and a boy toy or two—they're all slouching toward Sixth Street and beyond. This is a fast-paced, hold-on-to-your-bar stool satire, a hilarious, stumbling romp through law and disorder, urban ennui and its after-hour antidotes, Texas-sized lust and doom.”
—Alison Moore, author of The Middle of Elsewhere and Synonym for Love, and winner of the Katherine Ann Porter Prize for Fiction
“Lowell White’s first novel, That Demon Life, is hootenanny of jurisprudence, internet sex, false teeth, and box wine—all under the big skies of Texas. White's mischievous prose makes the fabulous realistic and the absurd an afterthought. Through it all, the audacity of the narrative allows us ample opportunity to laugh, even when the joke is on us.”
—Adrian Matejka, author of The Devil’s Garden and Mixology
“Here is the story of success in spite of oneself, rendered with a sly and witty and wry appreciation for the ordinary horrors of everyday life. That Demon Life is a hoot, a virtuoso tale by a master story teller. Mr. White, where have you been keeping yourself?”
--Larry Heinemann, author of Paco’s Story, winner of the National Book Award
“Lowell Mick White takes readers places John Grisham’s novels overlook. With a keen eye for the absurd, White gives a glimpse into the lives of the hapless and dysfunctional attorneys and judges who inhabit the Capitol of Texas.”
—Christine Granados, author of Brides and Sinners in El Chuco
That Demon Life
Published by Gival Press
ISBN-13: 9781928589471
Lowell Mick White: "My main inspiration for this novel was/is Austin, Texas--the life I lived there, the lives I witnessed there. I wanted to write something that would reflect the craziness and dislocation of the city and of the people who live in it. On a more basic level, I had two literary models: A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole, and "The Flea Circus," the opening novella in Billy Lee Brammer's The Gay Place. Toole's novel, I'd argue, is America's greatest comic novel, and I've always been impressed by Toole's ability to interrogate American society through the point of view of the wonderful Ignatius J. Reilly. "The Flea Circus" depicts Austin political and social life of the early 1960s. When I first read it, in 1979, there were still echoes of that earlier time floating around--I could feel the rhythms of the book and the city, sense them. That version of Austin is totally lost now, of course, as is the version of Austin where I came of age in the late 70s and early 80s. What has evolved is something altogether different and dynamic and dramatic and crazy and new, and it is this contemporary Austin that I tried to capture in That Demon Life."
Praise for That Demon Life:
“The slacker blonde has found her muse! In the hilariously disinclined attorney Linda, a no-account Austinite whose idea of legal research is a rerun of Law & Order, White has given us a transgendered update of the madcap A Confederacy of Dunces. Indeed, you could say Dunces is done one better in That Demon Life, because this swift-moving new picaresque of work-avoidance takes us into the realm of sex. Amid the complications that flower so colorfully out of the death of Linda’s pet bird—you’ll scent a fresh and nutty bloom every few pages—we are treated to the kind of lust-besotted escapades that leave a county judge stumbling naked through the urban sprawl, poking up tabloid writers rather than Lone Star rattlesnakes. Amid all the unhinged carrying on, I’ll be darned if our Linda’s take-it-or-leave-it blasé doesn’t prove a moral center, and deliver a riotous epiphany.”
—John Domini, author of A Tomb on the Periphery and Earthquake I.D.
“That Demon Life has got Austin in its sway, or at least this novel's motley crew of characters. A horny judge, a defense attorney with an attitude, an entourage of petty criminals, a dating service maven, a self made internet porn star and a boy toy or two—they're all slouching toward Sixth Street and beyond. This is a fast-paced, hold-on-to-your-bar stool satire, a hilarious, stumbling romp through law and disorder, urban ennui and its after-hour antidotes, Texas-sized lust and doom.”
—Alison Moore, author of The Middle of Elsewhere and Synonym for Love, and winner of the Katherine Ann Porter Prize for Fiction
“Lowell White’s first novel, That Demon Life, is hootenanny of jurisprudence, internet sex, false teeth, and box wine—all under the big skies of Texas. White's mischievous prose makes the fabulous realistic and the absurd an afterthought. Through it all, the audacity of the narrative allows us ample opportunity to laugh, even when the joke is on us.”
—Adrian Matejka, author of The Devil’s Garden and Mixology
“Here is the story of success in spite of oneself, rendered with a sly and witty and wry appreciation for the ordinary horrors of everyday life. That Demon Life is a hoot, a virtuoso tale by a master story teller. Mr. White, where have you been keeping yourself?”
--Larry Heinemann, author of Paco’s Story, winner of the National Book Award
“Lowell Mick White takes readers places John Grisham’s novels overlook. With a keen eye for the absurd, White gives a glimpse into the lives of the hapless and dysfunctional attorneys and judges who inhabit the Capitol of Texas.”
—Christine Granados, author of Brides and Sinners in El Chuco
That Demon Life
Published by Gival Press
ISBN-13: 9781928589471
