After the Lights Go Out by John Vercher: A Review

 

Sometimes a book captivates you by frustrating you so much you want to lovingly hurt it through a window. This is the book that did that for me it is a brilliant tense and frustrating thrillride and I can't wait to tell you all about it! This arc was provided to me by the lovely folks at Pushkin Press in exchange for an honest review.

Plot time: After the Lights Go Out is the story of Xavier a biracial MMA fighter who is trying to make a comeback. As he tries to revive his flailing career alongside visit his father in a care home Xavier is being torn between loyalties. Add to this his own health issues (pugilistic Dementia more widely known as CTE), Xavier is at breaking point and something is about to push him over the edge.

This book had me on the edge of my seat and biting my fingernails down to stubs! Zavier constantly makes what seems to be the wrong choice and you spend your time screaming at the book hoping he finds the error of his ways. In this way the book really reminded me of Uncut Gems and the way Adam Sandler's characetr was always so close yet so far away from what he was looking for.

Xavier's unreliable behaviour partnered with the delibierately off kilter interactions with others gvies the whole book this sense of foreboding that builds to a hideous climax. Constant missed phone calls and forgotten interactions. Xavier's condition leads him to a building series of strange behaviours that scare him and us the reader. We are constantly off balance like he is and it is haunting.

Vercher pairs this with a incredible exploration of Xavier's identity. This is especially present in the scenes with his dying white father whose alzheimers had brought back his racist past. The interactions between them were incredibly tense.  It's haunting and uncomfortable reading.

The whole book is incredible and yet profoundly disturbing and you will come out of it wanting to sit in a dark room for a few days. I holeheartedly reccomend. If you loved the films Uncut Gems and Creed this book is for you!

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