Review
Praise for After the Lights Go Out
A Booklist Editors' Choice Best Books of 2022
A CrimeReads Best Crime Novel of 2022
A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Book of Summer
A BookRiot Best Books of Summer Selection
Publishers Weekly Best Books of Summer
“Riveting.”
—NPR's Fresh Air
"Shrewd and explosive."
—The New York Times
“A knockout . . . The sweet science and its permutations also allow for exploration of issues like access to healthcare, race and class. John Vercher’s sophomore novel, After the Lights Go Out, approaches these topics like a fighter hitting the heavy bag, applying a keen eye and ear to make the story and language 'bounce up and down, not swing.”
—The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“John Vercher’s new novel of an MMA fighter on his last legs is just as depressing as you think it’d be (after all, don’t we turn to stories of aging fighters precisely because they are so bleak?). I will say, that if you don’t at least tear up while you read this, then you are a heel who deserves all the boos the crowd can throw at you. Oh, for those who need to know this before you start reading, the Dog Does Not Die."
—CrimeReads
“Vercher has delivered on every single expectation I had for his sophomore effort, and he did so with flair. A novel that takes place in the world of mixed martial arts, After the Lights Go Out is an impressive narrative that deals with a broken family, racial tension, dementia, and the world of fighting.”
—Gabino Iglesias, LitReactor
“Excellent . . . John Vercher has set his standard even higher with his second book.”
—Writer's Bone Podcast
“There is no sophomore slump . . . [Vercher] continues to take a hard look at fractured family dynamics, race, loyalty, and specific to this novel, the fragility of the mind.”
—Words & Sports
“John Vercher’s latest is a spellbinding tour de force. It’s the gut-wrenching story of Xavier 'Scarecrow' Wallace, an over-the-hill MMA fighter still looking for that last shot at redemption, even as his mind and body succumb to the ravages of his years spent in the cage. Written in deft and visceral prose—Vercher’s trademark—After the Lights Go Out is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I loved every moment of it, even the ones that broke my heart.”
—Lauren Wilkinson, author of American Spy
“Vercher gives us a nuanced, troubled protagonist trying to keep his head up in a dark and dangerous world. His novel is troubling, powerful, and ultimately, surprisingly, poignant.”
—Ben H. Winters, author of The Last Policeman and Underground Airlines
“John Vercher writes like a fighter, a dancer, an athlete. The prose is nimble and nothing on the page is wasted. His writing knows when to throw a punch, and, in a novel that explores the intersection of race, class, celebrity, and healthcare, John Vercher leaves it all in the ring. Here is a novelist at the height of his power. After the Lights Go Out left my heart black and blue, and I loved every moment of the beating it took.”
—Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of When Ghosts Come Home
"One person's entertainment is another's extraordinary trauma of the mind, body, and soul in John Vercher's stunning, stone-cold knockout, After the Lights Go Out. Heart-wrenching in its portrayal of anger, betrayal, and the value placed on the bodies of combat athletes, Vercher's novel is as relentless as it is unforgettable. Brutally elegant prose, jet fuel-like propulsiveness, and Vercher's powerhouse voice force us to confront a profound and tragic question: How do you save yourself when you're the person you trust least? Dear reader, brace yourself."
—P. J. Vernon, author of Bath Haus and When You Find Me
“After the Lights Go Out is a heartbreaking look at Xavier Wallace’s fight inside the cage and out. John Vercher gives us an unraveling understanding of Xavier’s tumultuous relationship with his white father and Black mother, and the seedy underbelly of fighting. It’s a riveting story where the drama propels you from page to page. All these threads kept me reading, but what kept me most engrossed is that although Xavier is involved in many battles, his most formidable opponent might just be himself. Vercher is a master of interior tension. This book grabs you and doesn’t let go.”
—Crystal Wilkinson, Kentucky’s Poet Laureate and author of Perfect Black and The Birds of Opulence
“John Vercher shares this gripping, tragic tale with great compassion, deftly guiding the reader through the MMA world, the nuances of mixed-race identity, and the questionable allegiances that form when the world forces people to prove their own humanity. Never has winning seemed so bittersweet, and never have I felt so much for such a complicated character.”
—Chris L. Terry, author of Black Card and Zero Fade
“John Vercher’s After the Lights Go Out is a universal story about the grim realities of a savage sport and a savage world. Think Warrior by way of Fat City. It’s poetic, evocative, and charged with passion. It’s full of hope and heartache. Xavier ‘Scarecrow’ Wallace is a character I just can’t shake.”
—William Boyle, author of Shoot the Moonlight Out and City of Margins
“Pulls you into the ring and then breaks your heart.”
—PINJ
“The fight-game story is enough to drive most novels, but this one goes way beyond that. The scenes involving Xavier and his father are agonizing in their soul-shattering horror; the portrait of the Black nursing-home worker who absorbs Sam's abuse is breathtaking in its complexity; and Xavier's internal battle as his brain functions fail him brings home the quintessential noir emotion of powerlessness. This is a difficult novel to read, but there is a deep and sustaining humanity at its core.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
“Vercher (Three-Fifths) strides back in the ring with the explosive story of a troubled Philadelphia MMA fighter whose career has stalled . . . expertly captures the brashness and discipline of combat sports as well as the harsh realities of the fighting life, delivering all of it in a swiftly paced triumph complete with a surprising one-two punch of a conclusion. This is simply brilliant.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Praise for Three-Fifths
Nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Strand Awards for Best First Novel
Shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger
A Guardian, Sunday Times, and Financial Times Best Crime Novel of the Year
A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year
“John Vercher has such love and compassion for his characters . . . I couldn't help but be sucked into their lives from the very first pages. It's so incredibly suspenseful that I was continually surprised by the story and deeply moved by the time I turned the last page."
―Attica Locke
“Compelling and profoundly moving.”
—The Guardian
"Vercher builds strong, multifaceted characters with bold strokes, using the tools of noir to present what is finally a full-blown tragedy.”
―Booklist, Starred Review
About the Author
John Vercher lives in the Philadelphia area 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. He is a contributing writer for WBUR Boston’s Cognoscenti, and NPR features his essays on race, identity, and parenting. His debut novel, Three-Fifths, was named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune, CrimeReads, and Booklist. It was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Strand Magazine Critics’ Awards for Best First Novel.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
My Mind Playing Tricks on Me
Last year, he left his groceries in the trunk for two days.
He’d just gotten the call—a number-one contender fight. After alternating wins and losses, he’d strung together four in a row, evading a cut from the roster by the slimmest of margins. The old-timer, the journeyman. Not a has-been but a never-was. In spite of—no, because of the doubters and their calls to leave his gloves in the middle of the cage. No one would have thought less of him if he’d quit on his own terms. The game had passed Xavier “Scarecrow” Wallace by. Too many young bucks on the come up looking for a steppingstone to the next level. The cage had no place for old toothless lions fighting for their pride.
And then four in a row. No tomato cans, either. Championship kickboxers. Jiu-jitsu aces. Each one the next big thing. But none of them had the grind in them. All talent and hormones. Cardio made cowards of them all. Xavier dragged them into deep waters, the championship rounds where lactic acid torched muscles. Where deep breaths provided no oxygen, only the desperate need to breathe deeper. Faster. Shoulders ached. Submissions lacked squeeze. Punches lost their snap. Kicks sloppy, thrown with languid legs, hinging and pivoting at the joints from sheer momentum. Break the spirit and the body follows fast behind.
But he’d paid a cost for his time in the deep end, too. Worse than the patchwork remnants of stitches in his forehead; worse than the accumulation of crackling scar tissue above his jagged orbital bones; worse, even, than the seemingly interminable, intensifying headaches. Worse than all that was the forgetting.
Mild at first. Patches of time gone, sketches of memories swiped from a chalkboard where only the faintest outline of the words and images remained. More and more often, feeling that he’d been somewhere, done something, though never sure how, when—or if. The ravages of age, he told himself, nothing more. Some days he almost believed that.
When the contender call came, he’d been ready. The weight didn’t come off as easy as it had a decade ago, so he’d kept his diet tight. A fight meant keeping it even tighter. Temptation beckoned when the refrigerator was bare, so it was off to the grocery store for the usual suspects. Packs of skinless chicken breasts. Sacks of brown rice. Sweet potatoes. Leafy greens. Broccoli. Gallons of distilled water. He’d tossed his plastic sacks of calorie-bereft blandness into the trunk and drove to the gym to tell Shot the news before heading home.
That night had been restless. He conjured images of the fight to come. No matter how many times he’d ascended the stairs to the cage, his fearful mental rehearsal was always the same. Involuntary and unwelcome. And never was more at stake than now. A contender’s bout meant media days. Press conferences. Local television appearances. He played those out, as well. The questions about his age and how many more wars he had left in the tank. His thoughts on his opponent, attempts to spark the inevitable trash talk. He lay flat on his back in the darkness, eyes wide open. A hot breeze wafted through his open bedroom window. Sweat beaded on his bare chest. The broken air conditioning window unit sat like a headstone in tribute to its own demise. Even in the dead of night, the humidity of a late Philadelphia August hung in the air like fog, pressing up against the wood siding of his father’s Montgomery County bungalow.
Resigned to sleeplessness, he peeled the backs of his legs from the sheets and pushed himself to a sitting position on the side of the bed. He gripped the edge of the mattress and closed his eyes as he waited for the spin to slow, then stop, the positional vertigo another unwanted trophy, awarded after years of concussive blows to the head. His doctor had told him the spinning originated in his ears, something about crystals floating loose, a condition requiring a specialist’s treatment. Xavier imagined a long-haired socks and sandals-wearing type with a stringy goatee waving a shard of glass over his ears, collecting a seventy-five-dollar copay for five minutes of work. He told his doctor he’d take his chances. His physician then offered him a medication, but the side effects included dizziness. Xavier stopped seeing him altogether.
The spinning stopped and he stood. A cacophony of pops and clicks sounded in his joints, ankles to spine. He tried but failed to ignore the swell of pressure behind his eyes, the steam whistle of tinnitus in his ears, an unwelcome and worsening addition to the forgetfulness of late. From a pile of clothes at the edge of the bed, he donned a paint-splattered tank top and basketball shorts and stepped into the short hallway leading from the bedroom to the kitchen. Canvas tarps covered the floor. A roller sat in a pan. Paint congealed in the well.
The roller sizzled against the wall as he crossed it back and forth, up and down, the motion hypnotic, sage green covering the off-white. The first coat completed, he was no more ready for sleep than before, but the tinnitus had grown louder. He moved to the kitchen where he leaned his hands on the counter. His eyes squeezed shut, he willed the whistling to go away, but the intensity increased. He sat on the floor, long legs stretched out in front of him, and rested the back of his head on a cool cabinet door.
And then awake.
Not in bed.
Eyes open. Neck stiff. Ass sore.
Sweat had stuck the skin of his scalp to the cabinet door and he peeled his head away. He wiggled the stiffness from his knees and stood, gripping the edge of the faux granite countertop to steady the room. Through the window over the sink, the high bright sun shined orange through his closed eyelids as he waited out the spin. The carousel ride over, he scanned the room and saw the roller in the pan.The hallway walls had more paint on them than before.
Didn’t they?
The fumes, perhaps. That made sense. They’d made him drowsy, and he’d sat. He should have opened more windows. That seemed like something he might have told himself at the time. Of course, that was why he fell asleep. On the floor. In the kitchen. Perfectly reasonable. Unlike the time on the microwave clock. 3:24. In the afternoon.
That’s impossible.
He walked from the kitchen to the living room, ducking his head under the jamb, and retrieved his cell phone. The clock on the screen read the same as the one on the microwave. There were a number of texts and calls from Shot. Xavier had missed his morning workout. And his afternoon training session.
My bad, Shot. I’ll double up on the roadwork. Hitting the trail right now. Catch you at the gym tomorrow.
He watched the screen. The speech bubble appeared, the dots darkening and fading in sequence before disappearing. Xavier’s face tightened. Then:
K.
“Fuck,” Xavier said. No way to make the drive to Manayunk now. Rush hour would be a nightmare by the time he got to Lincoln Avenue. Another headache swelled at the base of his skull. Back in the kitchen, he grabbed a gallon of distilled water from the pantry and downed two ibuprofens. A pair of running shoes sat by the front door. He scooped them up and stepped out into the summer haze.
An hour later, he’d returned home, sweat-soaked and ravenous. The heat of the asphalt trail had burned through the bottoms of his shoes, propelled him forward, faster than his planned pace. The sun’s relentless blaze had weight and rounded his shoulders. He peeled off his tank top, dropped it to the linoleum with a wet slap, and downed more than half of the gallon of water in loud glugs as the plastic imploded. The remaining water he poured into a pot on the stove. He ignited the gas burner and went to the refrigerator for a chicken breast to boil and noted that it was his last. The vegetable drawer was equally sparse, and his bag of rice in the pantry was down to his last serving. To the grocery store tomorrow then.
The next morning, the list he’d taped to the refrigerator reminded him of his errand. He headed to his car, opened the driver’s side door, and was hit with a potent smell. A sour odor, like the meat drawer in his refrigerator when the power had gone out in the middle of a summer some time ago (when was that?). He poked his head in the backseat, the odor stronger there. Some sweaty rash guards and shorts sat lumped behind the passenger seat. He knew that smell, and it wasn’t this one.
He popped the trunk. There sat the groceries he’d forgotten he’d bought the day before. Chicken spoiled in a cloudy pink puddle of its own juices. Wilted broccoli glistened with slime. Cooked under the summer sun.
He held the waste at arm’s length as he hauled the bags to the trash cans next to the garage. The stench rose up out the can in a whoosh as he dropped them in, and he gagged. He left the door open to air out the car and sat on the edge of the driver’s seat. He recalled wanting to go for groceries. He remembered knowing that he needed to. Yet he didn’t remember having gone. He’d been busy, he rationalized. His mind preoccupied with the fight, among other things. The groceries had simply slipped his mind. Just like falling asleep in the kitchen, it could have happened to anyone.
Sure, it could have.
The memory of that day had faded like many others since, and he’d not thought of it again—until this morning.
Late (again) for work at the gym, Xavier opened his driver’s side door. The trapped heat blew a stench against his face like a blast furnace—but it smelled nothing like the reek from last year. He reflexively slammed the door shut and held one nostril closed as he blew snot out of the other, but the odor lodged in his olfactory. The smell of shit and piss was unmistakable, but there was something else, too. Something he couldn’t place.
He walked toward the trunk, stopping to look in the backseat. On the floor behind the driver’s seat was a pile of feces sitting in a pool of urine. Across from the mess, in the same space on the passenger’s side, was a dog with grayish blue fur, curled into itself.
“What the fuck?” Xavier ran around the back end of the car, whipped the rear passenger door open, and held his breath. “No, no, no, no,” he said, wishing the dog had been some kind of mirage, brought on by the haze and glare of the high morning sun. He kneeled on the cracked driveway and hovered his hand over the dog’s body, skin pulled tight across the ribs. Xavier went to rest his hand on the dog when the ribs moved.
He jerked his hand back. A hallucination, surely, born of wishful thinking, but he lowered his hand again, and the curved bones rose to meet his palm.
“Hey,” Xavier said, softly.
The dog’s whip-like tail pulled away from where it had curled against the hind legs, lifted, and then dropped to the floor with a thump.
A little louder. “Hey.”
The tail thumped twice more.
Xavier slid his hands under the dog’s head and hind quarters and gently lifted him out of the car. Its skin was hot to the touch through its thin fur coat. He cradled the dog to his chest and could not differentiate the dog’s rapid heartbeat from his own. Xavier lowered his nose to the top of the dog’s head and breathed in.
Through the smell of the dog’s own fluids, there was a scent embedded in the fur on its crown, one that unleashed a torrent of recollection, though one stood out more than any other. When he first saw the dog, he wondered who would put it in his car, what kind of person would leave it there to suffer in the summer sun. The scent told Xavier what kind of person would do such a thing. He didn’t need to see the rescue adoption papers sitting on the passenger seat with his signature to discover the answer.
The dog was his.
