Title: It feels so good when I stop
First published: 2009
Description: The hilarious and irreverent debut novelabout a modern Everyman struggling tolearn how to love, choose, and commit onhis own terms, from the highly acclaimedsinger and songwriter.From the first moment he met Jocelyn, he knewhe would marry her or destroy his life trying. Hedidn’t count on being the lucky bastard that gotto do both.It’s October 1996 in Cape Cod. Our hero—a narrator so ordinary that he remains nameless—is a talented but floundering musician-turnedwaiterwho has hightailed it out of a volatileday-old marriage in New York and further intohis own ever-deepening mess. With no job, noapartment, no wife, and a six pack of beer,he’s looking for a clean slate. For years he’sbeen dodging life’s extremes, stuck somewherebetween responsibility and freedom, love andobsession, obligation and desire, apathy andsuccess. Now he’s seeking sanctuary at thehome that his sister abandoned, along with hermarriage, so that he can sort out something inhis life—what, he’s not quite sure.Looking for distraction from his memoriesof the hot-blooded Jocelyn, who is still refusingto return his calls, he agrees to look after histwo-year-old nephew. Together, the unlikely paircatches the attention of Marie, a young womanin the neighborhood with a troubled past of herown. As they get to know each other, our heroventures into unknown territory, where his affectionfor a damaged kindred spirit just mightshock him awake and shake him to the core.By turns hilariously irreverent and unpredictablyaffecting, It Feels So Good When I Stop isa disarmingly fresh love story and coming-ofagenovel that refracts with pristine clarity whatit’s like to grow up, and to fall and stay in love inthe real world.
Subjects: Divorced people, Literature, Fiction, Man-woman relationships, Fiction, humorous, general
LC classification: PS3616.E749 I7 2009