LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with author and attorney Lori B. Duff, who had a thirty-year career as a lawyer and municipal court judge before turning to writing. A blogger and columnist as well, she has served as president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Her humorous essays have appeared in newspapers, on blogs, and in published collections such as The Armadillo, the Pickaxe, and the Laundry Basket (2015), You Know I Love You Because You’re Still Alive: Confessions of a Middle Aged Working Mom (2016) and If You Did What I Asked in the First Place (2019). She has now turned to fiction writing, and her debut novel, the courtroom drama Devil’s Defense, was published last month by She Writes Press. Duff sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about this new book.
Devil’s Defense follows a small-town lawyer who finds herself drawn into a case representing a client she doesn’t particularly admire. How did the idea for the story first come to you? Were there specific social or legal themes you wanted to explore, or did they develop naturally?
I was watching the confirmation hearings of a politician who shall remain nameless. This guy was an arrogant, entitled guy with only a passing understanding of consent. Several thoughts struck me at once while I was watching this, including— 1) I was tired of arrogant, entitled guys like that getting positions of leadership and I wanted to understand why; 2) Probably this guy had handlers who had prepped him for this hearing and he was too egotistical to follow their advice. I pictured them watching this at home cussing him up and down and I thought of how many times I’d coached a client and they refused to listen to my advice to their own detriment; 3) What goes on in the head of these guys? What makes them tick? So the character of Coach stood in for this guy, and Jessica is the one trying to make heads or tails of him. In addition to exploring those issues, I wanted to portray what happens behind the scenes in these situations. How you can’t necessarily blame the lawyer for what they’re being paid to say, and how the system only works when everyone has adequate representation.
Your career in the law must have been an influence when writing the story. Were there any incidents or aspects of the story taken from real life? Was there anything that was new to you, or that you had to research for the book?
If the adage “write what you know” is true, then that’s exactly what I did. My career was obviously an influence. I know what happens when clients and lawyers interact and clash. I know what happens in a courtroom. I did not use any of my clients’ stories in the book—I want everyone I’ve ever represented to know that I will always maintain their
confidentiality. That said, when you’ve been practicing law for 30+ years like I have, there are going to be things you say and hear all the time. I did have to research the back child support issue. I’ve never had a legitimation case where the child was that old, so I didn’t know how the law would handle it. The cases Jessica cites are real cases. I also looked up some things like the weather on particular dates, and what songs were in the top 40 at a particular moment in time.
Your heroine lives in a small Georgia town, just as you do. What realities about small-town life in Georgia does your story reflect? Do you feel the story would be the same, if set in a different part of the country?
Absolutely not. The fictional Ashton, Georgia is just as much a character in the book as any of the people. There’s a particular way that southerners talk and view the world, there are southern foods and places. I had to argue a lot of it with my editors, who weren’t southern. For example, a number of scenes take place in a Waffle House, which has its own culture. Apparently, the dictionary and style manuals say that fried shredded potatoes are written “hash browns”. But the Waffle House menu has it at one word—hashbrowns. So I insisted that we spell it the southern, Waffle House way. But there’s more to it than spelling. The weather affects the way people act. The expectations that you will speak kindly to people you can’t stand. The way a majority of the population looks at everything through a religious lens.
Devil’s Defense was your first novel, but not your first book. Were there differences between writing a novel, when compared to writing essays or other shorter works? Were there specific challenges, or things you particularly enjoyed about it?
I enjoy a good challenge, so there’s a good bit of overlap between the challenges and what I enjoyed about the process. I can dash off an 800 word essay and be done with it. But a novel requires not only more time but keeping more balls in the air. You’ve got to remember everyone’s height and eye color. You’ve got to remember how many days pass between one event and another. And who knows what and when and how they figured it out. In writing dialogue, you have to keep everyone’s voice and vocal quirks straight. This one cusses a blue streak, this one never would—he always uses slang, her language is more formal. The best thing about it, though, is that you really get to explore a topic. I started out wanting to know what made this kind of arrogant, entitled guy tick, and by the end I understood him. I had to understand him in order to make him three-dimensional. One of Jessica’s big faults is that she sees the world the way she wants to see it instead of the way it is, and it was fun to watch her open her eyes a little.
Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Do you write in a particular place, or at certain times? Do you map out your story ahead of time, or let it develop organically?
The first productive half hour of every day is spent writing. Usually that’s at my desk in my home office (formerly known as my son’s room) or my law office. Sometimes that’s the only writing I get done, and sometimes I manage to sneak in a little more. I type 100 words a minute, so I can get a lot done in a half hour. I ‘write’ a lot while driving or in the shower or standing on line, so by the time I get to my laptop I’m simply transcribing what’s already in my head. I don’t outline. I generally have a broad idea of where I want to go, but the details get filled in as I go. I’ve been a trial attorney for thirty some-odd years, and I think there’s a huge link between the way you tell a story in a courtroom for a jury and the way you tell a story in a novel. I’ve learned in trial work that if I write out my questions, inevitably the witness will answer one in a way I didn’t/couldn’t predict and then the next question on my list makes no sense. So I have a general idea of what I want to get out of a particular witness, but if they make a left turn, I follow them and try to nudge them in the direction I want them to go a different way than I’d planned. A good trial attorney has to be able to think on her feet. Writing is similar. I start out thinking, I want this character in this scene to do X. But if I’ve done a good job in creating the character, they are a person unto themselves and I can hear their voice in my head. When it comes to actually writing the scene, something may happen or someone may say something that provokes them to answer or respond in a way I wouldn’t have planned. So I have to adjust accordingly. Sometimes writing feels like I’m simply transcribing what the voices in my head say.
What can we look forward to next from you? Devil’s Defense is described on the cover as a “Fischer at Law” novel—will there be sequels?
Yes, there will be sequels. The second, Devil’s Hand, is slated for release on October 7, 2025. In it, Jessica represents the abused wife of a county commissioner. She has to deal with the backlash from representing someone who is accusing a muckety-muck of wrongdoing, and also try to understand the values of the religious community around her, which are in great contrast to her own. In the meantime, her estranged father comes for a visit and she has to deal with her own domestic issues.
Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?
What isn’t on my shelves? I think that’s a shorter list. Nothing is more attractive to me than a well- organized bookshelf, and I have them all over my house, organized by genre, then author, then chronologically. I know there’s a trend now to organize books by color, and while that looks nice, I don’t know how you’d ever find a book again. I am a voracious reader. I keep track of what I read, and I just finished my 111th book of the year (I’m writing this on November 19th). I refuse to be pigeonholed by genre. I’ll read anything that is interesting and well-written. Fiction, non-fiction, biography/memoir, science fiction, fantasy, romance, literary fiction, horror, young adult, you name it. I also try to make sure I read authors who fit into categories I don’t fit into, whether that’s race or religion or culture or sexual orientation or neurodiversity or anything else. One of the greatest things about reading is that it can help you understand the world around you. If I’m only reading things by people who have the same perspective I do, then I haven’t learned much. I also love a good series. There’s nothing better than falling in love with a character and/or a world and then being able to visit them again.
What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?
I just started reading Eleanore of Avignon by Elizabeth DeLozier. That’s my ‘bedtime book’ that I keep on my nightstand. I’ve got an advance reader’s copy of What is Wrong with You by Paul Rudnick open on my Kindle. And my audiobook du jour belongs to a series I’m re-reading—the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, which is one of my favorite pieces of mind candy, and I’m going through it this time for craft purposes, because I’m learning how she picks up story lines from past books without being tedious. The book I’m up to is Dead Reckoning which I think is the 11th in the series. Anyway, all three of those books are great, which is nice. I don’t always get the trifecta. As for recommendations, lately I’ve been recommending The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton and the Emily Wilde series by Heather Fawcett to everyone. Love those books.
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