After the Lights Go Out
John VercherXavier “Scarecrow” Wallace, a mixed-race MMA fighter on the wrong side of thirty, is facing the fight of his life. Xavier can no longer deny he is losing his battle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), or pugilistic dementia. Through the fog of memory loss, migraines, & 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 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 & by living rent-free in the house of his white father, whom Xavier was forced to commit to a...
°°°
John Vercher has a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Pittsburgh & an MFA in Creative Writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program. John serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of English & Philosophy at Drexel University & was the inaugural Wilma Dykeman writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. His debut novel, Three-Fifths, was named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune & Booklist. It was nominated for the Edgar & Strand Magazine Critics’ Awards for Best First Novel. His second novel, After the Lights Go Out, called “shrewd & explosive” by The New York Times, was named a Best Book of Summer 2022 by BookRiot & Publishers Weekly, & named a Booklist Editor’s Choice Best Book of 2022.