Devil Is Fine: A Novel

by John Vercher

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Domestic Thrillers; Magical Realism

Synopsis

Named an Indie Next Pick, one of TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, a Best Novel of the Year by Electric Lit, a Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2024, and longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize.

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.

 

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Release date: June 18, 2024

Publisher: Celadon Books

Print pages: 267