Riverstone Books is excited to host John Vercher to talk about his new book, Devil is Fine.

Pre-order your signed copy of the book here.

About the book:

From acclaimed novelist John Vercher, a profoundly moving novel of what it means to be a father, a son, a writer, and a biracial American fighting to reconcile the past.

Reeling from the sudden death of his teenage son, our narrator receives a letter from an attorney: he has just inherited a plot of land from his estranged grandfather. He travels to a beach town several hours south of his home with the intention of immediately selling the land. But upon inspection, what lies beneath the dirt is much more than he can process in the throes of grief. As a biracial Black man struggling with the many facets of his identity, he’s now the owner of a former plantation, passed down by the men on his white mother’s side.

Vercher deftly blurs the lines between real and imagined, past and present, tragedy and humor, and fathers and sons in this story of discovery—and a fight for reclamation–of a painful past. With the wit of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and the nuance of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, Devil Is Fine is a darkly funny and brilliantly-crafted dissection of the legacies we leave behind, and those we inherit.

About the author:

John Vercher lives in the Philadelphia area with his wife and two sons. He holds a Bachelor’s in English from the Universtiy of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program and served as an adjunct faculty member at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. He currently serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of English & Philosophy at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, and as regular visiting faculty at Randolph College's low-residency MFA program in Lynchburg, Virginia.

His previous novel's include After the Lights Go Out and Three-Fifths.

About the conversation partner:

Jan Beatty’s eighth book, Dragstripping, is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press, September 2024. Her memoir, American Bastard, won the Red Hen Nonfiction Award. Recent books include The Body Wars and a chapbook, Skydog (Lefty Blondie Press, 2022). Other work includes Jackknife: New and Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh, 2018 Paterson Prize) named by Sandra Cisneros on LitHub as her favorite book of 2019. Beatty worked as a waitress, abortion counselor, and in maximum security prisons. She is Professor Emerita at Carlow University, where she directed creative writing, the Madwomen in the Attic workshops, and the MFA program.