(Seeking Representation)

New Orleans musician Jon Dumaine faces the ultimate threat to his sanity—an extreme case of sound sensitivity in this genre-bending comedic memoir.

At the start of his thrilleresque journey, Dumaine contracts hyperacusis and tinnitus, a thieving combination of extreme sound sensitivity and ungodly ringing in the ears. Friends, family, and doctors all thought the conditions would heal—yet they stick around for over a year without improving. When an audiologist finally diagnoses Dumaine with hyperacusis, he must confront the head demon in his quest for silence: his mind. Among many therapies, mindfulness meditation is what saves him. But to reap the benefits, he’ll have to go through—not around—the fated hearing problems that nearly destroyed his relationship, sanity, and career.

Described as “Brimming with tangential, sarcastic, anecdotal, mocking, and self-deprecating pathos—but congested with godawful, second-rate, low-rent, laughable (and not in the good way) humor” by a back-stabbing local thesaurus, Dumaine’s memoir unfolds through a series of absurdist adventures that reflect his sonically-fractured state of mind: a Heavenly battle between good and evil; a top-secret operation to steal a government tinnitus curing device; and a family who burns his book to keep warm on a cold winter’s night.

Exploring what it means to push through chronic pain to find healing on the other side of impossibility, Hold On, Let Me Get The Phone invites the reader to experience what it’s like to have the sound of sizzling food cause you intense pain, to have a child’s laughter make you run away in fear, and to have ringing in your ears so loud and insistent you’re constantly telling everyone, “Hold on, let me get the phone!”