A riotous revenge novel about a woman’s quest to escape her stalker ex-boyfriend—by stalking him herself.
NERVE DAMAGE
by Annakeara Stinson
Knopf, May 2026
(via Neon Literary)
Credit: Greg Wonder
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, hundreds of phone calls from dozens of different numbers. He showed up outside her house 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 only arrived 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 only reveal 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.
Annakeara Stinson is a writer whose work has appeared in Bustle, Brooklyn Magazine, The Inquisitive Eater, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Marie Claire, and more. She has an M.F.A. in fiction from The New School and currently lives in L.A.
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