Our unnamed narrator is biracial (born to a White mother and a Black father). He is grieving the death of his son when he is notified that he has inherited land from his estranged grandfather. It turns out that in the past the land was a former plantation.

The novel consists of a conversation that the narrator is having with his deceased son and there is a definite element of magical realism.
Unfortunately, I am not a fan of magical realism and so this book was probably not for me, however, the I thought that the plot was intriguing and the well done.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

The story centers a biracial Black father grieving the recent death of his seventeen-year-old son, whose life is further unmoored when he inherits a plantation from his estranged white grandfather, and remains of both enslavers and enslaved are immediately discovered on the property. The man (whose name we never learn) is a writer and professor, and he thrills his agent by emailing her in the middle of the night with a book proposal based on these real-life events. But when morning comes he has no memory of writing the proposal his agent loves so much. He grows increasingly concerned as he begins hearing voices—and fears he's turning into a jellyfish. Vercher beautifully incorporates these elements of magical realism into his story to portray a man and father wrestling with past wrongs, and grasping at some sort of way forward. A book club could have a great time with this: there is so much to discuss.

I love books about realistic characters going through loss, grief, healing and/or seeking redemption, so when I read the synopsis of this book I had a feeling this was the kinda book for me.
And I wasn't wrong. I did like it, I did care for the father protagonist and all his struggles and journey to healing, and I also enjoyed John Vercher's writing style.
Personally, I didn't find myself as emotionally invested as I wanted to be, but I don't blame the book. The conclusion was also not my favourite part, but it's okay.
I can see other readers loving this books more than I did.
I certainly recommend this one to readers who are into character-driven stories focused on someone's pain and journey to redemption.

This book was beautifully written. It starts out with the narrator (main character) dealing with the recent death of his son.
Magical realism combined with beautiful literary work makes this a book you want to confine reading.

A beautiful story of grief, love, and family. This was one of the most unique books I have read. I have to admit, I did get a little lost eveyr once in a while with how lyrically this book is written but overall it was a compelling story. The ending was exactly what I wanted so that was perfect for me!

"Devil Is Fine" by John Vercher plunges readers into a complex narrative woven with mystery, humor, and poignant reflection. The story follows a biracial protagonist who, reeling from personal tragedy, unexpectedly inherits land that turns out to be a former plantation. This ironic twist thrusts him into a journey of confronting his family's troubled legacy, blurring the lines between past and present, reality and imagination.

Vercher's narrative prowess shines as he navigates themes of race, identity, and inheritance with both bracing honesty and dark comedy. The protagonist's exploration of the plantation's history forces him to grapple with uncomfortable truths and reckon with the complexities of his lineage. The novel's blend of surrealism and emotional depth draws comparisons to Paul Beatty's "The Sellout," offering a profound examination of the burdens we inherit and the choices we make to reconcile with our pasts.

"Devil Is Fine" is not just a story of historical reckoning but also a deeply personal journey of self-discovery and redemption. Vercher's writing is compelling, his characters vividly rendered, and the exploration of themes deeply resonant. By the novel's gripping conclusion, readers are left breathless, contemplating the lasting impact of our histories and the power of reclaiming one's narrative.

What a beautifully intense read! I didn’t want to put it down. I love how the author, John Vercher, was able to weave creepy, unnerving, bizarrely unsettling situations with incredibly real, lived, factually accurate experiences.

Ultimately, I understood this story to be about a biracial man finally coming into his own as a father only after the passing of his son. And as a parent myself, reading about this main character’s journey through parenthood was a raw, vulnerable experience. Add the element of Christianity and when parents force it upon their children, and I was an emotional wreck for intermittent scenes throughout the book! Hello, religious trauma.

And also I love when writers write about writers, a story contains a story about stories. And this book delivered on just that. It reminds readers of the other side of this literary equation. The books we read are often a struggle to publish and can mean an incredible amount, financially and emotionally, to authors looking for stability. It can be a tough industry and is certainly one fraught with trends, fads, and pressures.

My only struggle with this book was some sentence structure. On several occasions there were sentences that stretched on for so long I’d get lost in the character’s thought process. This certainly could have been intentional, to illustrate the continuous flow of ideas, the mess of his mind at times, and the anxiety he experienced. But it was posed a challenge to comprehend here and there.

Overall, I absolutely loved this story, was rooting for the main character the entire time, and look forward to owning physical a copy!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for trusting me with an ARC.

The Devil Is Fine, by John Vercher, was published on June 18, 2024.

“If I got to choose between your God and the devil, then the devil is fine.”

Still reeling from a sudden tragedy, an unnamed 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.

This was an interesting and unique perspective as a biracial unnamed man struggles to cope with identity and truth, grief and family legacy, and colonialism.

“I don’t know how to weigh loss. But I do know how heavy it is.”

The writing is full of evocative imagery and deftly moves between reality and imagination, past and present, as the narrator struggles to cope with new found knowledge about his past. With the help of supportive new friends, he grows into a new understanding of his deceased son as well as his own identity.

I confess I struggled some with the magic and hallucinations. The writing is intensely lyrical but some of the meaning was lost along the way for me. I’ve seen many positive reviews and think this just wasn’t a good fit for me.

A blend of literary fiction, political satire, history, humor, and magical realism, Devil is Fine tells a tale of generational legacy that will engross fans of Paul Beatty's The Sellout. The story is told by a grieving father who is trying to reconcile trauma from his past- both with his son, and with his family's legacy of plantation owning. Incredible premise and a book I will be recommending to patrons.

John Vercher’s Devil Is Fine opens with a heartbreaking and humbling scene I don’t think I’ll ever forget. The unnamed narrator is driving his car in a funeral procession when he encounters road construction, noticing a dancing flagger. The funeral procession is for his seventeen year old son Mal, and when the narrator has a panic attack, the flagger eases the narrator through it with compassion. I was hooked right away, drawn in by the story, as well as Vercher’s lyrical writing style.

The narrator, who is biracial, soon learns he has inherited land upon the death of his son from his estranged white grandfather. He travels to the small beach town to sell the property, only to discover he is now the black owner of a former plantation—and harrowing secrets are buried beneath the dirt.

Vercher does a marvelous job blending what’s real and what’s not as our narrator processes his grief, shock, and finds himself more aware of the micro-aggressions he’s allowed to slide in his work and personal life. The side characters are fabulous, organic, perfectly supporting this strange journey our narrator is on.

With dark humor, our narrator grapples with the past, the present, and the belief that his dead son is haunting him. In fact, the story is basically a one-sided conversation from father to son. The story slowly evolves, revealing what caused the son’s death and what secrets the plantation holds.

I rarely enjoy books about grief, but Devil Is Fine is not just about grief. It’s about coming to terms with our mistakes, our complicated pasts, and finding a way through to the other side. I highly recommend this one!

This is a truly beautifully written novel. Our narrator is a biracial professor who is dealing with the death of his teenage son when he learns he will inherit property from his white grandfather. A trip to view the property leads to the news the land was formerly a plantation and uncovers to a horrific finding. As his anxiety reaches a new level and he loses his sobriety, he begins to start seeing visions.
This story is told in the present as events are unfolding with the addition of private conversations with his deceased son and also as flashbacks of his childhood. I think this format worked really well. I really enjoyed the conversations with his son. The author had me tearing up several times.

Dark humor and engrossing storytelling abilities make Devil Is Fine one to think about for some time.

Full review to come.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon for allowing me to read and review Devil Is Fine.

My mind is absolutely blown. Vercher builds us a character I'll never forget. The grief on the page was so real and this turned more horrific than I ever thought it would, but it worked. And I'll never stop thinking about this book.

This book truly left me stunned. What a storyline.

I will definitely be keeping my eye out for more Vercher novels.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book! I loved the atmosphere and seeing the MCs growth throughout the book. I didn’t expect how sad the book was going to be. It shows that everyone grieves in different ways.

For those who love character driven stories, weird yet profound lit fic, surrealism and dark humor, John Vercher’s latest novel, Devil Is Fine, is a must 5⭐️ read.

The novel begins with the narrator addressing his recently deceased teenage son in an internal monologue that persists throughout the story. Through his rich and raw, emotionally moving, and often hilarious and sarcastic remarks, we accompany him on a journey of self discovery and grief. As he navigates his struggles with alcoholism, the weight of estranged relationships, and a threatened academic career—he’s perceived by the committee as "too black" despite his internal struggle with not feeling "black enough"—we delve deeply into his psyche.

A pivotal moment comes when the narrator inherits a hundred-acre plot of land from his maternal white grandfather. Ironically, this land is discovered to have once been a plantation, with the remains of West African slaves buried in its soil. This grim revelation propels him to sell the property quickly, triggering a series of bizarre and unsettling events.

Soon after, the narrator begins to experience strange phenomena—visions, hallucinations, sleep paralysis, disembodied voices, and eerie figures. These experiences blur the line between reality and imagination, leading him to question what is real. He starts to wonder if his deceased son might be haunting him, forcing him to confront his deepest fears and unresolved issues rather than running away from them.

This novel was a delightful and captivating blend of magical realism, dark comedy, and mystery. Vercher’s beautiful prose made it impossible for me to put this book down so I hope you enjoy this magical read as much as I did—I know I'll be thinking about this unique book for a long time.

I’d like to thank @celadonbooks and @netgalley for the gifted ebook! #devilisfine #netgalley

This book was beautifully written and so incredibly heartbreaking! It pulls you in from the very first page, and you have so much sympathy for the narrator. I can't begin to imagine what he was going through.

While I enjoyed the story, there were times when I was confused about what was happening. There are some paranormal/magical realism elements that didn't really work for me, and that I felt took away from the story.

Even though this one fell short for me, the story will definitely stay with me for a long time.

Thank you to Celadon for letting me read an early copy of THE DEVIL IS FINE. This one is out June 18.

I had a hard time with this book. It was so hard to get through and that might just be the timing of it for me. The main character talking to his dead son was tough. The difficult topics were hard and I think this is just a right book, wrong time case for me.

When I read the synopsis for this book I thought it sounded interesting; however, it did not deliver the way I hoped it would. While there was reference to how the main character dealt with being biracial and finding out he inherited a plantation from his deceased white grandfather, it seemed like more time was spent showing how he was dealing with the tragedy surrounding his son. I was confused a lot while reading as I did not fully grasp what was happening in the present vs. the past and you don't fully know the relationship to the hallucinations he was having until midway through the book when you find out what happened to his son. Even the ending kind of left off with a cliffhanger and had me trying to figure out what really happened with the main character. Overall the book was okay but with the way it was written, I found it hard to really follow and get into. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Celadon Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Real Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded reluctantly down

The first book I reviwed by Author Vercher was <I>After the Lights Go Out</I>, a tough, unflinching look at the way one biracial man navigates a life whose deck is stacked against him as he determinedly struggles for Better.

Not so our unnamed stream-of-consciousness narrator. He's subsided into a haze of addiction, numbing the rejection of US society, his family of origin, and himself. He does not manage his pain, he tries to outrun it. This is, as anyone who has ever entered therapy knows, pointless and causes far more problems than it solves.

Be that as it may, here we are as the novel opens on the one disaster any parent dreads the most: the death of his son, a teenager, is unsurprisingly a shock to his system. His white mother's father, a stranger to him (for the most part) died and left a landholding...a plantation...to his son. After the unbearable horror of his son's funeral, he discovers he's a landowner for the first time in his life.

When he goes to the property to get the train moving on the process of selling it to be developed, ending at last his lifetime of (largely self-inflicted) poverty, things get weird. Like, "am I hallucinating?" weird. The language used in the synopsis, "blurs the lines between real and imagined," is very carefully chosen. I like magical realism, and am resolutely a materialist, but the eerie, spooky things that happen in the corner of one's eye, and juuust out of sight, aren't unreal necessarily. After all, if the brain does in fact create reality from the bouncing of photons and the resistance of electrons to merging, there's nothing to say ghost or spirits or other such "hallucinations" are not real.

Our narrator's derangement from this latest helping of grief, added to his borning acknowlefgment of harms he's caused via addiction behaviors, is entirely enough to explain his altered perceptions of the material world. The good news for him is these spirits or whatever are guiding him onto a path of redemption. The bad news is he's going to forego a lot of money.

Redemption, to the degree it is possible, is worth a lot more than money. That our man is on that path at last makes this a very satisfying read indeed.

I was less impressed by the author's approach to stream-of-consciousness storytelling here. I followed, I think, most of the shifts in narrative. The key is "I think". I'm a savvy, experienced old reader, who loves him some Virginia Woolf; and yet I was left wondering if I was following every change. That's not a good sign that the author's got the material entirely under his control. I'm happy to pay it forward and occasionally do a re-visit of a paragraph once in a way, but it happened a lot. That's why this isn't a five-star review.

The story told ends up getting all the stars; the storytelling was a very slight bit less than perfectly aligned wiith it. On balance, though, a strong positive on getting yourself a copy.

Just maybe from the library.