Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A biracial man deals with the death of his son and the inheritance of a plantation. The first thing the narrator of Vercher’s new novel says is, “The morning we buried you, a road flagger danced in the street.” He’s addressing Malcolm, his 17-year-old son, who recently died; on the way to the cemetery where the boy is to be buried, he experiences a panic attack and is comforted—as much as he can be—by the flagger, who recognizes his symptoms. The narrator’s life is already challenging: He’s estranged from Malcolm’s mother, and his job as a professor might be in peril because he can’t sell his new book. (A colleague urges the narrator to return to his literary roots: “The mixed-race angle on your first one was brilliant. People love that stuff. You know, socially relevant but not threatening. Something for everyone.”) Things get worse when the narrator learns he’s inheriting a few hundred acres of land from his loathed white grandfather—and it turns out to be a former plantation that still has the corpses of enslaved people on its grounds. The narrator, a recovering alcoholic, starts drinking again and makes a series of poor decisions while trying to manage his grief: “Who decides the appropriate amount of time you need to cope? This person or persons have to exist, right? Do they have an actuarial table calibrated for sorrow?” Vercher’s novel is gut-wrenching, but he leavens it with some humor; one of the narrator’s fellow bar patrons calls him names like “Colson Half-Whitehead” and “Phony Morrison.” His prose is self-assured, and while some of the dialogue comes across as a bit too movie-ready, most of it sparkles. It’s an intelligent book that never loses its heart. A solid novel that’s both funny and heartbreaking. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.