The hilarious and irreverent debut novel

about a modern Everyman struggling to

learn how to love, choose, and commit on

his own terms, from the highly acclaimed

singer and songwriter.

From the first

moment he met Jocelyn, he knew

he would marry her or destroy his life trying. He

didn’t count on being the lucky bastard that got

to 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-turnedwaiter

who has hightailed it out of a volatile

day-old marriage in New York and further into

his own ever-deepening mess. With no job, no

apartment, no wife, and a six pack of beer,

he’s looking for a clean slate. For years he’s

been dodging life’s extremes, stuck somewhere

between responsibility and freedom, love and

obsession, obligation and desire, apathy and

success. Now he’s seeking sanctuary at the

home that his sister abandoned, along with her

marriage, so that he can sort out something in

his life—what, he’s not quite sure.

Looking for distraction from his memories

of the hot-blooded Jocelyn, who is still refusing

to return his calls, he agrees to look after his

two-year-old nephew. Together, the unlikely pair

catches the attention of Marie, a young woman

in the neighborhood with a troubled past of her

own. As they get to know each other, our hero

ventures into unknown territory, where his affection

for a damaged kindred spirit just might

shock him awake and shake him to the core.

By turns hilariously irreverent and unpredictably

affecting, It Feels So Good When I Stop is

a disarmingly fresh love story and coming-ofage

novel that refracts with pristine clarity what

it’s like to grow up, and to fall and stay in love in

the real world.