LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE INDIE NEXT PICK NAMED A BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR BY ELECTRIC LIT ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024 A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF 2024 FEATURED IN THE LA TIMES, THE ROOT, AND THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS

Still reeling from a sudden tragedy, our 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. In a shocking irony, he is now the Black owner of a former plantation passed down by the men on his white mothers side of the family.

Vercher deftly blurs the lines between real and imagined, past and present, tragedy and humor, and fathers and sons in this story of discovering and reclaiming a painful past. With the wit and rawness of Paul Beattys The Sellout, Devil Is Fine is a gripping, surreal, and brilliantly crafted dissection of the legacies we leave behind and those we inherit.