After the Lights Go Out by John Vercher

Published by Soho Press on June 7, 2022

Xavier’s father is suffering from dementia. Xavier and his mother are black. Xavier never suspected his white father of racism, but he’s starting to understand that his father made racist comments to his mother while watching rioting after the Rodney King verdict. As a child who worshipped his father, Xavier did not understand that his father’s emerging racism prompted his mother’s decision to leave.

Xavier is a professional cage fighter. He’s long been on the verge of moving up the ranks and making real money, but never quite reached that level. Coming off a one-year suspension for steroids, it looks like he never will. He’s taken so many blows to the head that he’s suffering from headaches, blackouts, memory lapses, and moments of uncontrollable rage. He fears he will become his father, out of touch with reality. When a nurse asks Xavier if he sees his future in his father, Xavier replies “It’s like looking in a mirror with the lights off.”

Xavier works for his cousin, a manager and fight trainer who goes by Shot. Shot lost his eye and his fighting career to a police beating. Xavier is in the doghouse with Shot after losing control and nearly beating the life out of one of Shot’s fighters while sparring. Shot is taking money from the mob and Xavier’s rage has made Shot’s life difficult.

While Xavier is an MMA fighter, the plot is standard for a boxing novel. The fighter is instructed to take a dive. The mob will take revenge if he doesn’t. Will he or won’t he? The novel departs from the formula by focusing on Xavier’s brain damage. Whether Xavier will even remember that he’s supposed to take a dive is the question that gives the novel its tension.

The main plot is secondary to the subplots that construct Xavier’s character. Xavier must reinterpret his relationship with his father now that he understands his father’s racism. Xavier is conflicted about whether to keep his father in his house or in an assisted-living facility. Xavier has unresolved issues with his mother that the story gives him a chance to resolve. Xavier’s relationship with a dog is heartbreaking, as is the betrayal of a brain that has taken too many knocks. Xavier is a gentle beast at heart, but his damaged brain is increasingly losing its violence barriers, impairing his ability to recognize the person he is becoming.

John Vercher’s prose moves with the swiftness and certainty of a skilled fighter. He gives the story a feeling of authenticity by detailing Xavier’s struggle to sweat out 10 pounds before his big fight. The only choice Vercher made that doesn’t work is an internal voice, words spoken in a bold font, perhaps the devil’s voice, that speaks to Xavier from time to time, representing the dark side of human nature. The voice that tells Xavier not to care about anyone but himself. Maybe blows to the head make fighters hear voices, but the contrivance is an unnecessary distraction.

Still, All the Lights Go Out tells a powerful story. Like Xavier, it pulls no punches. The plot contains no surprises, the ending seems inevitable, but the story ends as it should. The juxtaposition of a character in the grip of dementia and a son who is becoming his father gives the story more depth than a typical novel of its kind.

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