Devil Is Fine

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION - LONGLISTED FOR THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD - LONGLISTED FOR THE VIRGINIA LITERARY AWARDS -LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE - INDIE NEXT PICK - NAMED A BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR BY ELECTRIC LIT - ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024 - A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF 2024 - FEATURED IN THE LA TIMES, THE ROOT, AND THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS

Still reeling from a sudden tragedy, our biracial narrator receives a letter from an attorney: he has just inherited a plot of land from his estranged white grandfather. He travels to a beach town several hours south of his home with the intention of selling the land immediately and moving on. But upon inspection, what lies beneath the dirt is far more complicated than he ever imagined. In a shocking irony, he is now the Black owner of a former plantation passed down by the men on his white mother's side of the family.

Vercher deftly blurs the lines between real and imagined, past and present, tragedy and humor, and fathers and sons in this story of discovering and reclaiming a painful past. With the wit and rawness of Paul Beatty's The Sellout, Devil Is Fine is a gripping, surreal, and brilliantly crafted dissection of the legacies we leave behind and those we inherit.

Author: John Vercher
Publisher: Celadon Books
Published: 06/18/2024
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 9.46h x 6.52w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781250894489


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 01/01/2024 pg. 5
Booklist 04/01/2024 pg. 16
Publishers Weekly 04/15/2024
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2024
BookPage 07/01/2024

About the Author
John Vercher lives in the Philadelphia region with his wife and two sons. He has a Bachelor's in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program. John served as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of English & Philosophy at Drexel University and was the inaugural Wilma Dykeman writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. His debut novel, Three-Fifths, was named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune and Booklist. His second novel, After the Lights Go Out, was named a Best Book of Summer 2022 by BookRiot and Publishers Weekly, and named a Booklist Editor's Choice Best Book of 2022. His most recent novel, Devil Is Fine, was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, named one of TIME Magazine's Must-Read Books of 2024, featured as an NPR Book of the Day, and selected as an IndieNext pick.