A riotous revenge novel about one woman’s quest to escape her stalker ex-boyfriend—by stalking him herself.
NERVE DAMAGE
by Annakeara Stinson
Knopf, Spring 2026
(via Neon Literary)
Clarice’s breakup with P.T. began the usual way—she discovered he was cheating—and ended with a restraining order and a one-way ticket from New York to L.A.
Years later, on the day the restraining order is set to expire, though, Clarice spots a man who looks suspiciously like P.T. at a nightclub near her new apartment, flirting with the bartender. Clarice is certain her ex has returned to ruin her life, but with scant evidence pointing one way or another she takes increasingly unhinged steps to find the truth.
Profane and poignant, brash and deeply empathetic, NERVE DAMAGE is a different kind of survivor narrative—a novel about how far one woman will go as she tries to wrest back control of her life in a world that seems determined to send her spiraling.
Annakeara Stinson is a writer whose work has appeared in Bustle, Brooklyn Magazine, Eater, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Marie Claire, and more. She has an MFA in Fiction from The New School and lives in L.A.
Walter Simmering is searching for love and purpose in a city he doesn’t realize is fading away—San Francisco in 1993, at the height of the AIDS epidemic and the dawn of the tech revolution. Out of college, out of the closet, and transplanted from the Midwest, Walter is irresistibly drawn from his shell when he meets Cary Menuhin and Sasha Stravinsky, a dynamic couple who live blithely beyond the boundaries of gender and sexuality. Witty and ultra-stylish, Cary and Sasha seem to have stepped straight out of a sultry film noir, captivating Walter through a shared obsession with cinema and Hollywood’s golden age.
Through eleven illustrated essays, GIVE ME SPACE BUT DON’T GO FAR encourages readers to understand anxiety as a part of them, a neutral thing as unavoidable and intrinsic as any other part of their body. Anxiety isn’t an obstacle, it’s a roommate. Or in Haley Weaver’s case, her anxiety is represented by a wide-eyed tangle of string, Weaver reveals over the course of the book that it isn’t an enemy to defeat or an obstacle to overcome. Anxiety just is, and it’s never going away, but if we care for it with tender curiosity and attention, it has many gifts to offer. With care, practice, and the friendship of some really great coping mechanisms, you can learn how to live with your anxiety roommate in a mutually respectful, affectionate, even meaningful way.
A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Ivy League grads complain about the snack selection from a conference room with a view of houseless people bathing in the bay. Start-up burnouts leap into the paths of commuter trains, and men literally set themselves on fire in the streets.