We also talked about the fact that I'm mixed-race. For no other reason than just a natural curiosity. I remember when I was a kid, my dad used to just take trips to the local mall and sit and just watch people and observe and listen.

But I knew that I didn't quite have the same fortitude to do that professionally, to have it be the only thing I ever do. And so, for me, doing these amateur kickboxing and the one cage competition, to me those were an attempt to fight back against that voice. And so I think part of what accompanies that is that imposter syndrome, that voice in the back of your head that says, Maybe you're not quite good enough. One of the reasons I was so interested in writing this book and focusing it around the idea of mental health was because from adolescence and well into my adulthood, I grappled with anxiety and depression. Vercher trained in MMA as a young man, and though he never fought professionally, he knows what it feels like to step into the MMA cage.īook Reviews In 'Why We Fight,' One Man Searches For Self-Knowledge Through Mixed Martial Arts MMA is a multi-disciplinary sport that combines martial arts, boxing, wrestling and Brazilian jiu jitsu, a form of fighting on the ground that focuses on submission holds. He goes from happy to anxious to angry - not that we don't all do that in our normal lives, but he's now experiencing this sort of at a very amplified degree.' He's having violent swings in terms of mood. 'He's experiencing short term memory loss. 'He's experiencing what I described as a deterioration of his frontal lobe,' Vercher says of his character. The groceries rotted in Xavier's car because the beatings and head trauma he suffered over his years in MMA left him unable to remember that he'd bought them. The main character of the book, Xavier, is a veteran mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter who's also grappling with his biracial identity. That happens in the opening pages John Vercher's new novel, After the Lights Go Out. Imagine opening your car door one morning and being greeted by the stench of groceries, including raw chicken and vegetables, that were left in the backseat overnight in sweltering weather. John Vercher is the author of the novels Three-Fifths and After the Lights Go Out.

John vercher after the lights go out