Nerve Damage: A Novel

A riotous revenge novel about a woman’s quest to escape her stalker ex-boyfriend—by stalking him herself.

"It’s impossible for a book so chilling, so uncanny, so urgent to also be this funny. Nerve Damage is a major debut.”
—Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!

Clarice’s breakup with P.T. began the usual way—she discovered he was cheating. Then came the constant texts, the nonstop emails from burner accounts, countless phone calls from dozens of different numbers. He showed up outside her apartment and her office. He sent her flowers and poems, and, perhaps most sinister of all, a link to the music video for Dido's “White Flag.” Relief arrived only when Clarice finally obtained a restraining order and one-way ticket from New York to L.A.

Just as the restraining order expires—and three years to the day since she left him—Clarice spots a man who looks suspiciously like P.T. at a nightclub. Could it be him? Her best friend thinks she’s imagining things. Her therapist wants her to focus on healing her inner child. Her mother is busy planning her wedding to her fourth husband. A psychic medium can reveal only that P.T.’s energy is too volatile to locate on the spiritual plane. As painful memories resurface, Clarice is convinced her ex has returned to ruin her life. But with scant evidence to prove it, she takes increasingly unhinged steps to uncover the truth, ultimately leading to a place where paranoia and reality begin to blur.

A profane and poignant debut novel, Nerve Damage is a different kind of survivor narrative, about how far one woman will go to wrest back control of her life in a world determined to send her spiraling.