“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?).

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.” With his memory in shreds and his life crumbling around him, can Xavier hold on to the focus he needs to survive? John Vercher, author of the Edgar and Anthony Award–nominated Three-Fifths, offers a gripping, psychologically astute, and explosive tour de force about race, entertainment, and healthcare in America, and about one man’s battle against himself.Ī Booklist Editors' Choice Best Books of 2022Ī CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Book of SummerĪ BookRiot Best Books of Summer Selection If he can get himself back in the game, he’ll be able to clear his name and begin to pay off Shot. Then Xavier is offered a chance at redemption: a last-minute high-profile comeback fight.

The progress of Sam Wallace’s end-stage Alzheimer’s has revealed his latent racism, and Xavier finally gains insight into why his Black mother left the family years ago. Xavier makes ends meet while he waits for the call that will reinstate him after a year-long suspension by teaching youth classes at Shot’s gym and by living rent-free in the house of his white father, whom Xavier was forced to commit to a nursing home. Through the fog of memory loss, migraines, and paranoia, Xavier does his best to stay in shape by training at the Philadelphia gym owned by his cousin-cum-manager, Shot, a retired champion boxer to whom Xavier owes an unpayable debt. Xavier can no longer deny he is losing his battle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), or pugilistic dementia. Xavier “Scarecrow” Wallace, a mixed-race MMA fighter on the wrong side of thirty, is facing the fight of his life. A harrowing and spellbinding story about family, the complications of mixed-race relationships, misplaced loyalties, and the price athletes pay to entertain-from the critically acclaimed author of Three-Fifths

John vercher after the lights go out