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Letting Out the Devils
Our narrator spends his days behind bulletproof glass selling experimental, pseudo-legal drugs to the vagrants who linger around the gas station. His wife obsesses over a painting, endlessly starting over on the same canvas, layering thick acrylic colors on top of each other until the texture is thick enough to swallow a baby. And their baby - she's cutting teeth. Gun-toting street preachers, swastika-tatted wiggers, and trap house shamans with holes in their heads populate a Third Coast town choked out by chemical plants. What a time to be alive.
- GenresFiction
Kindle Edition
Published March 1, 2022
4 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Kelby Losack
12 books142 followersKelby Losack is the author of Texas Tea, God Is Wearing Black, Mercy, Letting Out the Devils, and several other books. Co-host of the Agitator podcast with J David Osborne. He works in construction and lives with his wife and their boys in Gulf Coast Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 3, 2022
Drop into the convenience store for some Kalm and drink it in warm milk. Buckle up for safety, but avoid driving. Try to dodge an unstable character wielding a shiv made out of a soup can. The preacher man gesticulates with a bible and a gun, spilling the same words day after day onto the hot street. Baby's in the trap house, and mommy's got the gun. To see more clearly, you must reveal your third eye to the world. Better living through trepanning. Things are looking up.
February 2, 2024
Man I fuckin love reading Kelby Losack he is just so awesome at creating a visual.
This story is just like living your life in your own neighborhood cuz Losack has this wicked ability to create stories places and characters I think everyone can relate to. Just a fuckin cool read. I highly recommend this. Kelby Losack fuckin rules.
This story is just like living your life in your own neighborhood cuz Losack has this wicked ability to create stories places and characters I think everyone can relate to. Just a fuckin cool read. I highly recommend this. Kelby Losack fuckin rules.
April 11, 2022
I'll write more at some point, but just to say on first reading that Kelby Losack's done it again. A short, easy flowing novel of crimes, misdemeanours and altered states, the endless hustle to keep family together, the comic timing of unseen gods.
I say first reading because Kelby's books kind of demand (and allow) different approaches. It's hard not to just want to blow through them in one sitting - or as close to one sitting as your life allows - but they also deserve a slower read, a read in bite-sized chunks so you can savour the magic. Because there's real poetry in amongst the slow motion chaos, moments simultaneously tiny and epic.
And being on/having been through the early years parental journey yourself will make you smile at the moments between the narrator and his daughter, and with his wife/gf too (see, said I had to read it again). Sometimes it'll be a sad smile, but not always.
I've probably said this before but I'll read whatever Kelby puts out, because there's alchemy in and between the words. Recommended, if that isn't obvious.
I say first reading because Kelby's books kind of demand (and allow) different approaches. It's hard not to just want to blow through them in one sitting - or as close to one sitting as your life allows - but they also deserve a slower read, a read in bite-sized chunks so you can savour the magic. Because there's real poetry in amongst the slow motion chaos, moments simultaneously tiny and epic.
And being on/having been through the early years parental journey yourself will make you smile at the moments between the narrator and his daughter, and with his wife/gf too (see, said I had to read it again). Sometimes it'll be a sad smile, but not always.
I've probably said this before but I'll read whatever Kelby puts out, because there's alchemy in and between the words. Recommended, if that isn't obvious.
April 29, 2022
It would be sad and inexact to call this a crime novel. It's more than that.
Letting Out the Devils is more like dark Clerks? One where working class hopelessness, chaos magick and fatherhood mesh together into a new and seamless narrative. Kelby Losack has a knack for creating these paradigms that seem to exist outside of space and time. These damned and haunted purgatories on the side of the highway, where you and I never even dare to look. These places right wing politicians are warning you about and yet that vote for them.
I would call this a survival novel. The story of people who are growing until adulthood crooked and imperfect and trying to find the extradimensional door to their inescapable reality. I loved it.
Letting Out the Devils is more like dark Clerks? One where working class hopelessness, chaos magick and fatherhood mesh together into a new and seamless narrative. Kelby Losack has a knack for creating these paradigms that seem to exist outside of space and time. These damned and haunted purgatories on the side of the highway, where you and I never even dare to look. These places right wing politicians are warning you about and yet that vote for them.
I would call this a survival novel. The story of people who are growing until adulthood crooked and imperfect and trying to find the extradimensional door to their inescapable reality. I loved it.
June 4, 2025
"The flames billowing from the towers at the plant tonight could burn God's retina, but the other side of the tracks is only dimly lit by amber street lamps and the flashing reds and blues of an occasional cop car. In the neighborhood where I live, there's a 24-hour pharmacy that sells cigarettes and a small cemetery behind a used tire shop. A few friends are buried there."
4.5
Letting Out the Devils is grotesque. It's so ugly, so abhorrent because it's so damn human. In a mere 106 pages, Kelby Losack has managed to say more about the state of modern humanity than many authors can say in 500 pages. An unholy, brutal, hard-hitting novel, Letting Out the Devils is like having a mirror reflect the very worst parts of your life back at you, reading it feels like being hated by God, it's what I imagine letting the love of my life stab me in the face would be like, horrific and so fucking real. Books like this actually sort of ruin other pieces of literature, because next to this, so many novels will pale in comparison. This is some seriously wicked stuff, deeply unsettling and profound, sort of like watching yourself die over and over again.
This is one of those books that, for the longest time, stumped me, because how do I convey how magical of a book this is? It would be utterly heinous to describe this as a crime novel, because it's so much more than that. It's a hood-rat noir, it's page after page of working class despair, it's nihilistic artistry of the highest form. Letting Out the Devils is a really niche book, it's not something easily recommended, it's for the lonely, the emotionally devastated, the detached dreamers. This isn't just another novel, despite its slim size, its impact is otherworldly. There's real poetry here, real beauty, it's a thing that's full of heart and dread and horror. It feels like being given pills as you discuss death with the void.
Sometimes it becomes difficult not to look at the world around you and imagine it all burning, sometimes it becomes difficult not only to picture the end but to welcome it, and think, it must not be so bad after all. But then, you stumble upon a book like this, and it pulls you back from the edge, it reminds you of what pure bloody wizardry is out there. It's a rarity, to stumble upon writing like this, writing so fearless, so intimate. It's not often, either, that we're treated to experiencing authors who know so intensely the world that they're writing about - not many would dare reveal themselves to their audiences like this. At once both timely and timeless, Letting Out the Devils is like experiencing the very best, and very worst dream of your life, this thing is a future classic.
"Between the bus stop vagrants and the plant workers, the store is the perfect place to do it, really. It's easy. You ask the customer how their day is going and gauge the direction of the pitch by their answer. Great? I know how to make it better. Same ole, same ole? How bout something to shake up the monotony. One of you day ones got shot in that bullshit down at the beach last night? Here, this will dull the pain for at least a little while."
4.5
Letting Out the Devils is grotesque. It's so ugly, so abhorrent because it's so damn human. In a mere 106 pages, Kelby Losack has managed to say more about the state of modern humanity than many authors can say in 500 pages. An unholy, brutal, hard-hitting novel, Letting Out the Devils is like having a mirror reflect the very worst parts of your life back at you, reading it feels like being hated by God, it's what I imagine letting the love of my life stab me in the face would be like, horrific and so fucking real. Books like this actually sort of ruin other pieces of literature, because next to this, so many novels will pale in comparison. This is some seriously wicked stuff, deeply unsettling and profound, sort of like watching yourself die over and over again.
This is one of those books that, for the longest time, stumped me, because how do I convey how magical of a book this is? It would be utterly heinous to describe this as a crime novel, because it's so much more than that. It's a hood-rat noir, it's page after page of working class despair, it's nihilistic artistry of the highest form. Letting Out the Devils is a really niche book, it's not something easily recommended, it's for the lonely, the emotionally devastated, the detached dreamers. This isn't just another novel, despite its slim size, its impact is otherworldly. There's real poetry here, real beauty, it's a thing that's full of heart and dread and horror. It feels like being given pills as you discuss death with the void.
"Ari comes around a little later with a tent rolled up on his back, talking bout how he's been scoping out overpasses to post camp under since he and Danielle were forced from the spot downtown. Talking bout how tough it is sleeping in the elements. Talking bout how they stayed down by the tracks the night before, and how the tent would shake every time a train roared past, and he'd imagine throwing himself under it."
Sometimes it becomes difficult not to look at the world around you and imagine it all burning, sometimes it becomes difficult not only to picture the end but to welcome it, and think, it must not be so bad after all. But then, you stumble upon a book like this, and it pulls you back from the edge, it reminds you of what pure bloody wizardry is out there. It's a rarity, to stumble upon writing like this, writing so fearless, so intimate. It's not often, either, that we're treated to experiencing authors who know so intensely the world that they're writing about - not many would dare reveal themselves to their audiences like this. At once both timely and timeless, Letting Out the Devils is like experiencing the very best, and very worst dream of your life, this thing is a future classic.
"Between the bus stop vagrants and the plant workers, the store is the perfect place to do it, really. It's easy. You ask the customer how their day is going and gauge the direction of the pitch by their answer. Great? I know how to make it better. Same ole, same ole? How bout something to shake up the monotony. One of you day ones got shot in that bullshit down at the beach last night? Here, this will dull the pain for at least a little while."
March 5, 2022
Yeah, I dig Losack. He's puts heart and humanity into his tales of getting by and getting high and while the central tenet of Letting Out the Devils might be difficult to pinpoint, you are invested in the life of our unnamed protagonist as he drifts along.
Losack has a great ability to humanise outsider characters imbuing them with everyday traits on top of the things that make them kooky. While it is a fight to get by, there is enjoyment to be had. His depictions of getting high don't fully eulogise drug use either instead plainly stately what is was like in terms of dreams, colours, feelings, but is ultimately tethered to the everyday grey of the world.
Losack is one of these guys telling it straight about life on the fringe of civilisation, where the characters are more colourful and the drugs plentiful that shows us we are all inherently just trying to get by in this world however we can.
Losack has a great ability to humanise outsider characters imbuing them with everyday traits on top of the things that make them kooky. While it is a fight to get by, there is enjoyment to be had. His depictions of getting high don't fully eulogise drug use either instead plainly stately what is was like in terms of dreams, colours, feelings, but is ultimately tethered to the everyday grey of the world.
Losack is one of these guys telling it straight about life on the fringe of civilisation, where the characters are more colourful and the drugs plentiful that shows us we are all inherently just trying to get by in this world however we can.
April 29, 2023
“At some point the Kalm hits, and everything takes on a low-res, sharp polygonal quality. Colours turn dull and grungy. Raymond and the goat are still here with me on the couch, but now they look like their skeletons are made of bricks. Think PS1 graphics.”
I think this is his best work, characters come and go but even those mentioned in short snippets take on form very well, their traits and failings there in the subtext.
I think this is his best work, characters come and go but even those mentioned in short snippets take on form very well, their traits and failings there in the subtext.
June 2, 2025
Damn. DAMN, but this is perfect. A little, brutal gem from Broken River. Airs out the skull, yes indeed.
+ reread for REASONS, and the opinion remains unchanged.
+ reread for REASONS, and the opinion remains unchanged.
November 4, 2024
A tower of poetry of the grittiest type of noir. So dark and real it’s a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of stale writing out there.
May 6, 2022
Banger. I read a lot of weird fiction, and most of the time the “weird” is made respectable by being veiled in genre, but this book captures the kind of everyday surreality that you get in something like FX’s Atlanta or Harmony Korine’s films, and somehow, underneath all the grime and dark humor, it still has a very human heart. Gotta check out more of Losack’s books.
March 29, 2022
Unlike most authors, Kelby Losack books exist in the now. Instead of trying to exist in another time/world or even existing in a timeless world(when the authors try to not use any cultural references), Losack's characters feel like they are people in your town that you just haven't met yet, that listen to the same music as your best friend, or are selling some kinda weird new drug to your co-workers. Full of anime and music references, but not lacking at all on the content. This is modern noir. Crime fiction that you can relate to.
June 20, 2022
I managed to read LOTD in two days. Short punchy crime novella. Kelby’s really been on one lately creatively and manages to do something new with every literary outing. Plus, the OG Isaac Kirkman makes an appearance as a drug-dealing shaman. Well worth your time and money.
March 28, 2022
Simple, dirty, and sharp with gangsta entertainment. The planet earth needs more reads like this. It’s a trip into the streets and a look at the grind of chasing bread gutta-style. If you are a parent then you’ll probably be able to connect with it even more.
The backdrop of a power plant adds to the already prevelant atmosphere in the pages. Pick up a copy of this and you’ll be entering a world of down-and-outs crowding a gas station where trepanned gangbangers hang and our protagonist slings imitation drugs, basically. Letting Out the Devils comes and goes with a vibe of its own.
The backdrop of a power plant adds to the already prevelant atmosphere in the pages. Pick up a copy of this and you’ll be entering a world of down-and-outs crowding a gas station where trepanned gangbangers hang and our protagonist slings imitation drugs, basically. Letting Out the Devils comes and goes with a vibe of its own.
August 11, 2025
Pretty great. Drugs, crime, and an adorable family dynamic! Kelby Losack's writing has a ton of heart.
May 30, 2022
Losack has an effortless texture to the way he writes. There's never a page that goes by without sensations rising to the surface. This probably seems like a minor thing or a strange detail to focus on, but so many authors let their characters and scenes spin off and wander around in abstraction without giving us the smells and sounds and touches of a place.
Like Losack's other books, there's a real slice of life quality to it. The novel strikes off in odd directions, is populated by viscerally real people, but it follows the rhythms of life rather than the rhythms you've come to expect from a narrative. And so people come and go, subplot drop off the page and never resurface. And while this is a tightrope I wouldn't recommend walking, it allows for some ecstatic moments that pierce through the book.
I think of fireworks with his daughter.
Probably that's what I'll always think about with this book. It's about as perfect as this kind of scene gets. Never maudlin or sentimental, but it makes your heart ache.
So, uh, yeah, I liked it. More Walmart Noir for the people.
Like Losack's other books, there's a real slice of life quality to it. The novel strikes off in odd directions, is populated by viscerally real people, but it follows the rhythms of life rather than the rhythms you've come to expect from a narrative. And so people come and go, subplot drop off the page and never resurface. And while this is a tightrope I wouldn't recommend walking, it allows for some ecstatic moments that pierce through the book.
I think of fireworks with his daughter.
Probably that's what I'll always think about with this book. It's about as perfect as this kind of scene gets. Never maudlin or sentimental, but it makes your heart ache.
So, uh, yeah, I liked it. More Walmart Noir for the people.
March 12, 2024
a very slight novella that sort of genrefies the slice of life through casual bank robberies and experimental psychedelics while hewing close to a domestic-type novel about a family sort of scraping by via selling drugs and crime. it's entertaining and you barely feel like there's any drama here, rather that you're dropped into a cartoon world passing for realism, where people regularly trepan themselves to get high. go ahead and give it a shot.
April 16, 2022
Another banger from a terrific writer.
June 29, 2022
we don't often equate trips to video game graphics but it's correct to do so
November 7, 2022
You’ve clicked this far, buy the damn book. It’s bossier than me.
November 21, 2022
Just a man trying to survive and support his family. The love in this is real.
June 23, 2025
I like it when it gets weird
March 29, 2023
This love story is grimy. It's definitely funny. Losack keeps it weird but relatable. Always relatable.
In the end, almost by surprise, you'll realize that this is really a very sweet love story about a family sticking together and getting by no matter what. I've read just about everything Kelby Losack has written and this one, in my opinion, is his best.
In the end, almost by surprise, you'll realize that this is really a very sweet love story about a family sticking together and getting by no matter what. I've read just about everything Kelby Losack has written and this one, in my opinion, is his best.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews