Where Is TEXAS TEA?!
An Interview with Kelby Losack
Kelby Losack: Texas Tea was supposed to drop on November 5th. You realize that was 41 days ago, right? Where’s the book at?
Kelby Losack: Oh, it’s gonna be like that, huh. No warmup, no “how’s it going,” just kick the door in. Aight, yeah, the novel was almost done, right down to the wire, and then—well, I started having these dreams…
I swear to god, you have like ten words to sum up this dream shit. Don’t nobody wanna hear it.
The whole novel rewrote itself in my dreams one night.
Just say you’re late finishing it. People know you work on the road, putting in long days and longer nights. You got a family, kids. Anyone who listens to Agitator, or has been following you for at least a minute, knows you been getting it out the mud. Just tell it like it is.
So there’s this detective character, right? And Cedric Dixon—the big gangster cowboy Texas Tea kinda revolves around—he’s always been this detective’s white whale. He wants to see the old man behind bars so bad, and he wants to be the one to do it. Well, like I said, I was dreaming bout this story, and in my dreams, the detective was a midget. So when I woke up, I obviously had some rewriting to do.
I can’t tell if you’re being serious.
That ain’t the only thing, though. The book is narrated by this dude Cutter Thibodeaux. He was abandoned by his rodeo clown dad in a trailer park and taken in by Cedric, raised to be a killer and an arms dealer on top of being a cowboy. He’s got Jesus scars in his hands and he ain’t gotta saddle a wild horse to break it. I knew I wanted to tell the story in his voice ‘cause he is both intimately invested in the central crime family’s history, but he’s got the distorted distance of an outsider. Through Cutter, I could tell this decades-spanning chaotic tragedy the way a cowboy story oughtta be told: in a way that you don’t know whether to believe it or not, ‘cause dude telling it don’t care if you believe him or not, but that lowkey makes you want to believe it, even though it’s fucking crazy. You feel me?
Go on.
I had the ending in mind early on, soon as I figured out it was a first person narrative, and at first it was kinda gimmicky, the way it ends, but I knew I could pull the gimmick off and it would hit. Then I had a dream that made the ending go further than the gimmick, so I tossed that initial idea, and the book is so much better for it.
You did the same thing with your last two books—Mercy and God Is Wearing Black. Postponed the release dates, I mean. Can you just not ever be on time? Do you feel with all the promoting you do to hype up your releases that, in some way, you are letting your readers and supporters down a little by constantly delivering late?
No.
That was two different questions.
And I said no.
Aight, bet. Are you at least done dreaming yet? Like, the book is what it was finally meant to be or whatever and it’s dropping soon?
When I dropped Mercy five days later than promised, it was ‘cause I became conscious of what my subconscious was tryna say with that story. And it was things I was tryna say bout my son, so I couldn’t just ignore that revelation in the name of putting shit out on a self-imposed timeline. God Is Wearing Black was two months late and I don’t remember why at the moment, but neither does anyone else. Soon as it comes, nobody cares bout a drop date. Texas Tea will be worth the wait. It’ll drop soon, yeah—before Christmas is my hope, but before the new year without a doubt. Me and my truck have aged 1,948 miles in just the past six days or else it’d be out right now.
I’m the only person who has read anything beyond the first chapter, which you teased in this very newsletter a while back. Why are you keeping this one so close to the chest, even from your wife and your folks and the Broken River crew?
The people closest to me are the ones whose reactions I’m most excited and anxious bout. I don’t want them in the kitchen while I’m still whipping up the sauce, I want to give them a blind, pure experience.
Is this the most personal thing you’ve ever written?
No. At least half of my shit up to this point has been slightly tweaked fabrications of my real life. This one has moments of dialogue or circumstance ripped from experience, but it’s the first time I feel like I’ve actually written a plot instead of a series of journal entries.
And who is your target audience with it?
The kids who cut across Highway 35 on ATVs without watching out for traffic. Anyone who’s had their palm read by a meth-mouth psychic with a horse hitched to her front porch. The weirdo with swangas on his Lexus and a johnboat parked in the front yard. This one is for the hoodrats and the rednecks, but especially the redneck hoodrats.
I thought you were hyping this as your mainstream breakout.
It is. Landman, Yellowstone, Eddington—larger-than-life neo-westerns are having a moment.
Why do you think that is?
Some of us have the blood of wild west outlaws in our veins, and we’re collectively staring out at a new horizon in either fear or defiance of what’s coming. So the spirit of the western resonates, and resonates even harder if it’s set in the present. It’s the spirit of giving your whole heart into a way of life that is fading each second you spend living it.
What would Texas Tea best be adapted into—video game, comic book, mini-series?
It’d best be a country song. Or it is one, lowkey. Just in novel form. Someone with a lot of money should pick up the film rights, though, and then get Spike Lee to direct it.
There’s a lot of brutal violence, graphic sexual content, colorful language, authentically depicted Southern characters… you really think it’ll hit with a wide audience in our current social climate?
The wide audience of people rolling their eyes at that dumbass question are exactly who it’ll hit with.
That’s why I asked it.
I know.
So… before Christmas, right?
Round about that time, yeah.
Kelby Losack is the author of several books published with the Broken River collective. He works in construction and lives with his wife and their two boys.
Ryan D. Simón, editor-in-chief of American Vulgaria and Ritsuko, whipped up some insane promo art for the book (see above). Catch it in full-page lustrous glory in the next issue of Ritsuko.
Pre-order Texas Tea HERE.
Cop some limited Texas Tea-inspired drip (hoodies, jerseys, stickers, and more) HERE.
Read the first chapter below:
Okay word. I didn’t think I could get more excited about this book, but you done proved me wrong on that front. Take all the time you need, but also, thanks for the update.
🧨🧨🧨🧨