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Devil is Fine
Author: John Vercher
Source: NetGalley
Pub Date: June 18, 2024
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Devil is Fine is a unique look at racial divides, blacks, whites, mixed-race, fathers, sons, legacies, and one man’s attempt to survive his life—a life he doesn’t understand when, as a mixed-race man, he inherits former plantation land following the death of his beloved son. There are metaphors, fantastical imagery, and symbolism. The story takes the reader through alcoholism, loss, family, history, faith, success, and, most of all, failure. There are metaphors, fables, lessons, and fish stories. In short, this book was way over my pay grade and my intellect. I am sure this will win a zillion awards, but I was weary of trying to figure it all out. I went forward and back multiple times and still tried comprehending the storytelling, although I’m pretty sure I understand the message. I look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts on this one. It’s a good book with a lot of literary depth. #loss #father #son #generations #mixed-race #black #white #legacies #inheritance #jellyfish #imagery #literaryfiction #multiculturalinterest @celadonbooks @netgalley #DevilisFine #grief #magicalrealism #johnvercher
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I received a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own. Thank you to the Publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the opportunity to read this novel.
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#book #books #bookAddict #BooksOfInstagram #bookstagram #bookstagramer #bookshelf #reader #booklove #bookreader #CeladonReader

Many thanks to the publisher for my copy. All opinions are my own.

This is an incredible and mind blowingly unique book that manages to feel like literary fiction while also keeping you glued to the page with tension and mystery and somehow also weaving in incredible fantasy elements. Truly impossible to explain adequately, but hugely entertaining to read on the page.

I was fully pulled in from the synopsis on this book and it did not fail to deliver on packing a punch from the very beginning. The story serves up truly heartbreaking moments, and somehow still manages to thread in moments of pure levity that have you laughing out loud. It's not an easy combination to nail, but John Vercher does it beautifully.

I must say, you should go into this one blind, but you will be delighted at the journey it takes you on.

This is a well written book that starts out slow and sad. It was a bit depressing. Then it starts to get a bit weird and I felt my eye glaze over. Not one of my favorites

I just saw 'American Fiction' a few months back, and this book reminded me a lot of that (if you throw in some magical realism). Vercher's style was difficult for me to get used to at first, because it almost verges on academic. But once I got used to the flow and the nonlinear storytelling, I ended up enjoying this powerful book. At times, I felt like Vercher was trying to include too many elements, but it did make the book feel more realistic in its confusion. Folks who are not fans of magical realism will probably hate this (especially the ending), but I appreciated the fantastical aspects and thought it lent itself well to an unreliable narrator perspective.

This is my first book by this author which I enjoyed reading. I enjoyed how I was pulled into the story from the start. The author's use of details made the story realistic and hard to put down. This is a well written story about what lies beneath the dirt is not always what you expect to find. A story that has some mystery and a painful past that will take you on an emotional roller coaster. I enjoyed how the characters were connectable and how easy they made the story to read. They added so much to the story . They are great characters with great growth throughout the story. This is a fast paced story that is entertaining and one you don't want to miss . I really enjoyed this book and look forwardf to seeing what is next for this author. I highly recommend this book.

I like how this book mixes up some reality with some possible psychological hallucinations, shedding light on a modern twist on what it means to be black in America today. A mixed race professor loses his son and ends up inheriting something his son was supposed to get. In the journey to get there he rediscovers himself and his life.

“This is probably going to sound corny, but like if there is a God, like with a capital G, I hope it doesn’t matter if I believe in him or not. More kind of hoping he believes in me.”

Devil is Fine opens on a grieving father in the midst of a panic attack on the way to bury his estranged teenaged son. The opening packs a punch, but the hits just keep on coming in this heartbreaking and imaginative novel.

Soon after the burial, the narrator receives word that he has inherited a plot of land that would have gone to his son. Further complicating matters is the man is biracial and the land in question is a former plantation that is in the family by way of his white ex wife.

As he sets out in the journey to explore the land, we get deeper glimpses into what brought him to this point in life via present day encounters and crucial flashback moments. Why is he divorced? Why was his relationship with his son estranged? And what is up with all the jellyfish?? (IYKYK).

A racially charged commentary, Devil is Fine is brilliantly written by author, John Vercher. An author who clearly has a way with words, he also manages to infuse dark witticisms into an otherwise very solemn novel. Admittedly confused at what was actually going on at times, it didn’t take away from the fact that Vercher is a talent worth a read and one who knows the devil is indeed in the details.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for an advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I did not finish this book, and stopped at 17%. I found myself dreading "having to" pick it up and finish it and write a review, which made it clear to me that it wasn't the book for me. That doesn't mean it won't be the book for someone else!!!

The story starts with a funeral. The main character, an adult man, is mourning the death of his teenage son. There is an on-page panic attack (content warning).

It felt like the story was going to go somewhere, but the writing was so flowery that I couldn't focus on the plot. It felt like it was taking away from the story, and like I was just waiting for something to happen. That being said, the writing isn't bad - it just didn't draw me in.

thank you to celadon books for providing me this copy for review.

this book has absolutely stunned me, and easily become one of my top reads of the year so far. i’m happy to give it 5/5 stars, but would truly give it 100,000/5 if i could.

“devil is fine” by john vercher explores the life of a biracial man dealing with grief, inheritance, and the ghosts of his past. the story begins with the narrator, who is estranged from his son’s mother and struggling to sell his new book. when he learns that he’s inheriting a former plantation from his white grandfather, he faces a shocking irony: as a black man, he now owns land with a painful history. the plantation still holds the corpses of enslaved people, and the narrator grapples with grief, alcoholism, and declining mental health.

john vercher is an absolute master at using different methods of storytelling, and devil is fine is the proof. the book’s narration draws the reader in immediately, personalizing the story in a way that sometimes feels emotional, while other times feels shocking and even uncomfortable. his style of writing is such that you want to drown in it, he takes you from being a casual observer to intimately involved in the plot, all while keeping the storyline compelling until the absolute end.

the second half of the book is truly where his writing shines, when the book takes a twist into a meta existence, introducing layers upon layers of a plot that has been building from literally the first line of the book. the book has it all: unsettling scenery, dark humor, emotional connection, and fully-developed characters.

if you enjoy books that blend surrealism with explorations of mental health, first-person narration, and twisting plotlines, devil is fine will be perfect for you. the book reminds me of mona awad’s style of storytelling, with an incredible first-person twist.

[arc review]
Thank you to Celadon Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Devil Is Fine releases June 18, 2024

The premise here was <I>so</I> promising: an unnamed biracial narrator in the thick of dealing with grief and the loss of his son, inherits a large plot of land from the white side of his family that happens to be a plantation with buried remains of those that were enslaved.

With prominent themes surrounding race, family, and mental health, this could have gone in so many poignant directions, but what we got lacked a lot of nuance and depth that I was hoping for, especially as a biracial reader.
The commentary was slapstick and the plot was muddled with too many paranormal/magical realism elements (the ghost, fox sightings, jellyfish tentacles, morphing into other people through flashbacks, etc.); I strongly believe the core themes had more potential to shine through if the tonality used was quite the opposite and wasn’t watered down to appease non-poc folk.

<i>“Believe me when I tell you, if you stick with these themes, especially in today’s climate, I don’t care how smart and funny it is—which this pitch certainly is—it will not sell if you don’t make it accessible.”</I>

The pacing is extremely slow (significant things mentioned in the blurb are not revealed until nearly half way through) and the narrative remains rather surface level throughout.
A key element that was missing for me was the direct link between the narrator and his grandfather which we never got. Being half Black and inheriting a plantation is pretty horrific, yet we barely touch upon how that came to be through previous generations. There was even a lack of on-page reactions from other immediate family members considering how viral some of the articles got.

cw: alcoholism relapse, substance abuse, panic attacks

A biracial man’s son dies in an accident. His son is to inherit a huge plantation from his white grandfather. The land has an issue that causes police to investigate.
Usually I’m not a huge fan of literary fiction, but this was beautifully written. Heartbreaking on many different levels.

Thank you Net Galley, Celadon books, and John Vercher for the ARC! Pub date 6/18/24

This is the most heartbreakingly beautiful book. At parts I struggled to continue from the heaviness of the subject matter, just feeling the despair of the narrator struggling through both life circumstances and the knowledge of his own mistakes. I think any parent has shortcomings they would like a chance to remedy or apologize for, but what do you do when it's too late?

The biracial narrator of DEVIL IS FINE is reeling from a sudden tragedy when he receives a letter from an attorney: he has inherited a piece of land from his estranged white grandfather. While he is trying to hold himself together and process the events, he learns that the land formerly owned by his ancestor was home to a plantation where unspeakable treatment and brutal crimes against humanity occurred.

Lines begin to blur between reality and nightmarish imagination; it becomes difficult to tell if the narrator is dreaming, hallucinating, or outright haunted by spirits of those gone too soon. I felt torn between utter sympathy and pleading with him to make better choices, knowing he was under impossible pain and stress.

The writing in this is stunning. It's also desperately heavy and dark, so while I highly recommend it I would say pick this one up when you are in a good place to do so.

Thank you so much to Celdadon and Netgalley for this ARC to review.

Wow. If you want a book that blends catastrophic loss with generational trauma with insightful, biting commentary on both academia and the publishing industry, book friends, this is that book.

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

The book is every bit as heavy and dark and gripping as that sounds, with glimpses of ironic humor to further highlight social failings.

Vercher tells a story of a man haunted by multiple ghosts while simultaneously struggling with a publishing world that apparently no longer has interest in the stories he wants to write. Through a blend of stream of consciousness writing, elements of magical realism, and changes in timelines, Devil is Fine is a haunting novel that made me reflect deeply on how we, in clumsy attempts to help, may contribute to increased pain. I cannot recommend this novel enough.

If you have read this book, I need to chat with you. So many things I want to check in with others on. I'm still not sure what I read, but I know a talented writer when I read one. And Vercher is a master at weaving understated, devastating themes into a compelling, important story. Think Toni Morrison level. I know. Crazy praise. but her books kept coming to mind.

The new novel from John Vercher focuses on a father who is grieving for the loss of his son. This protagonist, who is also an author, has inherited a piece of land that was supposed to go to his son, and with his death, has now gone to him, and he’s not quite sure what to do with that.

Where it gets most interesting is in the newspaper clippings that the author has put in the book such as one from the Delmarva Daily, from August 4 of 2023 (fictitious) and the title is “Silas Lavery Owned Slaves but was He also Misunderstood?” which is the kind of article I want to set on fire every time I see a white journalist or author or whoever it is trying to defend a clear enslaver who owned other human beings, particularly in the cases of the descendents of those enslavers whose families ill-gotten gains continue to this day and who have profited tremendously from translatlantic slavery, but would rather pretend it doesn’t exist. In this article, the writer claims that Vercher’s protagonist is unfairly malgining someone who owned enslaved people. A body has been found buried on-site, and my question was … I am pretty sure there would be more bodies.

There were 8 bodies found, five of European descent, and three West African, all males, “two adults and one adolescent.” So you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that this means with the exception of one infant in the group of whites found buried on the former plantation, the adults were more than likely enslavers or part of the main enslaver’s family, possibly an overseer, and the Black bodies found belonged to the enslaved people of African descent who this white family owned. The fictitious article goes on to state that Silas owned the Lavery plantation hundreds of years ago. He had a wife, two sons and a daughter. The writer of the article hilariously provides evidence that the Lavery senior and his sons were ‘good, strong men’ while positing that the adult enslaved people did not work as hard… and I just pretty much wanted to set fire even though it’s a fictional article.

The misinformation in the article and conjecture are just… madenning.

And when the protagonist receives an email signed Jacob Remus, but in this case, maybe a white man so desperately to play the role of Uncle Remus in the most racist Disney film of all time, Song of the South, he has actually named his company Song of the South Wedding ‘Solutions’ and that made me want to smash things. This man wants to use the plantation that the protagonist has inherited and turn it into a side to have plantation weddings and … turn it into a bed and breakfast and i just… the fact that so many people are doing this in real life, with the story of the man who until a few years ago was renting out a plantation property to tourists and visitors as an Airbnb, and the VERY real continuing trend of white people and… in some cases, I actually saw evidence of an interracial couple where the woman was white and the groom was Black and how…. how they got this man to re-enact a cosplay situation where she was dressed as the bride but as the mistress of the Big House of a plantation and how he was her faithful and loyal slave, is something that makes me want to VOMIT. When I visited the Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, SC, I was struck at the juxtaposition of “ooh! Come and see our beautiful gardens and feel zen” with “Oh by the way, we also have some slave cabins over there and if you want to learn about them you have to go on a tour” and learning that so many people still have plantation weddings there is DISGUSTING and WRONG.

It’s a very heavy ending, but it’s also a worthwhile read.

What a beautifully written story. To be honest, this book took me a couple chapters to get into, but once I did I was so intrigued. This is a book that I think is best going into semi-blind, so I’ll be vague here.

The magical realism elements thread throughout the story in such a delicate way, that I often didn’t really know what was real and what wasn’t; given the MC’s situation, I’d say this was the point. There were also a couple points where things got kinda spooky, and I loved the psychological push & pull that I was taken on. Race plays a big part in the plot in a multitude of ways, and I think the commentary there was nuanced and thought-provoking. The past timelines with the narrator and his son were emotional and complicated, and I enjoyed getting this other side of the story. This is a book to take your time with.

A love story between a man and his son, who died too soon, this story is narrated by the unnamed father who talks to his son throughout the novel alternating between coping with Malcolm’s death, remembrances of times past with Malcolm, memories from the narrator’s own childhood, and interactions with the everyday.

Throughout you see the father try to come to terms with his new reality and gradually learning from his son a different way of looking at the world. After inheriting land from his white grandfather, which was meant for Malcolm, the novel takes an unexpected turn as bodies are discovered on the land that was once a plantation.

There were parts of this book that made me tear up, parts that made me upset, that made me shake my head, and still others that brought laughter. But that’s the way it is with grief. It brings on all the feels at any given moment and the more we push against those feelings, the harder it is to accept. Ultimately a story of healing and coming to terms with one’s past and how we can move forward despite this, “Devil is Fine” is a deeply evocative literary novel.

There are some bizarre occurrences in this novel that I’ll attribute to mixing medications and alcohol (I felt these were surreal though as the novel wraps up connections and some explanations are made), and a ghost component which reveals itself in (in)opportune times providing the narrator and reader with moving insight into the plantation itself.

I alternated between the ebook and audiobook. There were some passages that lent themselves better to reading the words on the page rather than listening so I could better absorb them (pretty sure this was a me being distracted thing), though I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Dion Gram as audio book narrator and will definitely look for more titles he has narrated.

#bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booknerd #bookgeek #johnvercher #devilisfine #literaryfiction #familylife #magicalrealism #grief #booksaboutgrief #booksthatheal

The narrator, whose name you never actually catch, is going through a lot at the moment. His son has passed away and also the strained relationship between him and his son’s mother. Not only is he dealing with all of that, but he also receives a letter that he has inherited a plantation from his grandfather. This land was supposed to go to the narrator’s son, but since his son has passed away, it now goes to him.

Throughout this book, you learn about the narrator’s past and the significance of the jellyfish and their tentacles. You also learn as to why this plantation is causing a lot of chaos as the narrator is biracial, but the plantation was own by his mother’s side, who is white.

What will happen to the narrator? What about the plantation? How did his son pass away and will the narrator & his son’s mother ever heal?

This book was a good read, but the first 100 pages were on the slower side. I think this book is a great book that dives into really deep issues. It did bother me a bit that I never found out what the narrator’s name was. (If it was mentioned, then it went over my head.) After the first 100 pages, I really started to get invested in this book and its characters.

** spoiler alert ** This book had a really engaging writing style, but unfortunately, it ultimately didn't work for me. I'll try to keep this brief, but I think I had 2 big issues here. Firstly, I felt that the more abstract aspects of the story really detracted from the book, at least for me. The possibility of ghosts, the bizarre appearance of tentacles, and especially the ambiguous ending left me feeling uncertain if the main character was having a mental break, or whether everything was symbolism I was supposed to understand (mostly I didn't). My second issue with this book is pretty straightforward, and probably will not be well received. The focus on race, the character's blackness, the trauma he displays when confronted with the plantation, and the stereotypes presented of "allies" and supposedly well-meaning white people felt so incredibly trite to me, and rang extremely redundant and hollow. I'm sure there are many people in the world, especially in the US, who genuinely feel like this. However, I disagree about the cause and about the cure. I feel like this kind of attitude fosters only more division between races. Again, the writing style was beautiful. This was a hard book to put down, and I was invested in the characters and what was happening to them. Ultimately, though, this ended up not being the right book for me.

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

“You don’t stop being afraid of things when you become a parent. You stop showing your fear the way you used to is all.”

2.5 stars rounded up! I don’t know what I think about this book and that rarely ever happens to me. Usually I know my star rating from almost the beginning. But this one was…a bit weird. I almost dnf’d it at 50% and then again at about 70% and the only thing that kept me going was that I wanted to know how Malcom died.

The writing is absolutely beautiful and the style is a bit different and fresh. But the story itself dragged for me and had some elements where my lack of ability to suspend disbelief really tripped me up. But overall it’s a very powerful story with a beautiful message.

Thank you to Netgalley, Celadon Books, and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Captivating and fast-paced "Devil is Fine" follows the story of a biracial man who inherits a plantation after tragedy strikes. It paints a picture of what it means when you feel like you don't belong.

There were moments of this novel that were absolutely devastating. Especially as our unnamed narrator begins the story at his son's funeral. Throughout the novel, you're given breadcrumbs of what happened until the whole story unfolds.

There are also really haunting moments (literally!) when the narrator goes to the land he's been given. The ghosts of the land take him back in time to witness unspeakable events. This happens as archeologists are digging up the land, trying the preserve what's buried in the earth.

I really loved the ending of the story, how it all ties back to an event the narrator went through when he was younger. Something that has stuck with him forever. There are parts that make you question reality with dizzying effects. It's one of those books that will stick with you forever.