(Seeking Representation)

In this genre-bending comedic memoir, veteran New Orleans rocker Jon Dumaine faces the ultimate threat to his sanity—an extreme case of a rare and debilitating sound sensitivity disorder.

Jon Dumaine cranked his amp up to ten every night for years. Then he begins experiencing devastating sensitivity to any sound mildly elevated, and experiences persistent ringing in the ears bad enough for him to live in constant pain and isolation as he pushes away those close to him. Now, when he turns his amp up to one, the result is chronic pain.

Friends, family, and doctors all thought he would heal—yet he suffers for over a year without improving. When an audiologist finally diagnoses Dumaine with hyperacusis and tinnitus, he must confront the head demon in his quest for silence: his own mind. Soon enough, he finds himself in a mindfulness meditation workshop trying to lean into the pain and noise instead of running to escape it. It’s the most un-rock and roll thing he’s ever done.

In the process of trying to get his life back, Dumaine begins writing his meta-memoir, which might be the one you hold in your hands. During his thrilleresque journey, he’s caught in a Heavenly battle between good and evil, runs an operation to steal a top-secret government tinnitus-curing device, meets a family who burns his book to keep warm on a cold winter’s night, and battles the World Destroying Artificial Intelligence Algorithm, a computer program that claims to be the book’s real author.

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!”