The narrator in Joe Pernice’s first full novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop, doesn’t have a name but, at a glance, you could be forgiven for thinking that it ought to be “Joe Pernice.” Both are Massachusetts natives; both have had interest in their music from Sub Pop, one of the most celebrated indie-rock record labels; and both went to UMass.

“That’s why I set [part of the book] there, too; I’m lazy and I didn’t feel like researching what it was like to go to Ohio University. You know, I just had a general idea of the geography and stuff like that. So rather than make it all up, I just said ‘fuck it’ and placed it in a setting I knew.”

Sitting in Ideal Coffee on Ossington, where Pernice wrote most of the novel (“at that table right there,” he says, pointing), he explains it all casually, like a contractor telling you why he decided not to bother replacing your house’s original crown mouldings. Wasn’t he at all concerned that readers would think his beleaguered narrator — a down-on-his-luck character hiding from the wreckage of a one-day marriage by holing up in Cape Cod with his soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law — was a thinly-veiled stand-in for Pernice himself?

“Yeah, I knew I was going to get that. Like, whatever.  If I had made up a fake name they would have said, ‘Oh, he’s just hiding, disguising his own thing.’ You can’t really win.”

Few first-time novelists would be able to shrug off possible misinterpretations of their work, but Pernice is used to his creations being out there in the world, casting their own shadows regardless of what their creator intended. His career as a singer and songwriter started with the Scud Mountain Boys, an acoustic, country-influenced quartet who put out three records in the ’90s to a hail of critical acclaim and a deal with Sub Pop for their third, 1996’s Massachusetts. When they split, he formed the more pop-rock-oriented Pernice Brothers and continued to rack up both laurels and fans, the latter of which now form a sizable cult. For the launch of It Feels So Good, Pernice recorded a covers album (released on his own label, Ashmont Records) of songs referenced in the book, from the Muscle Shoals soul chestnut “I’m Your Puppet” to “Soul And Fire” by fellow Massachusetts band and Sub Pop veterans Sebadoh, whose frontman Lou Barlow makes an appearance in the book, though Pernice asked permission first.

“I wrote Lou, and said, ‘You turn out to be a good guy,’ and he wrote back and said ‘Thanks for asking.’ I think he appreciated that I asked. He said, ‘You can make me a dick if it’s more appropriate.’”

In light of this music-loving author’s novel about a music-loving guy picking himself up after a romantic crisis, you may be feeling the urge to compare it to Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. Resist the urge. John Cusack would not be cast as the narrator in the movie version of It Feels So Good, because there’s no way Cusack’s agent would let his character float to the surface after a one-day marriage to his long-suffering girlfriend, or find himself washed up in a vacation town in the off-season, riding a girl’s bike into town and wondering where it all went wrong.

Dismissing the comparison, Pernice describes his narrator as “more fucked up. If [the High Fidelity protagonist’s] girlfriend left a note on the toilet seat saying to call her, he wouldn’t pretend it fell behind and finish jerking off to a photo of Cybill Shepherd grooming a horse named Lemonade.”

That ought to give you a taste of the black humour — and “adult situations,” as the movie ratings put it — that makes It Feels So Good the kind of book you’ll get plenty of laughs from, which you’ll then immediately try to stifle on account of your mild and misplaced shame. The dialogue is both filthy and rich with detail, especially the prickly exchanges between male characters such as Richie, the narrator’s fast-talking, womanizing roommate during his post-collegiate years. But while the narrator is in a funk of his own making at the beginning of the novel, it takes the intrusion of real adult situations, like one character’s grief over the death of a child, to make him grasp the kinds of challenges that life can really throw at people.

“I didn’t want to write a book about this journey where you’ve got a guy who identifies his problem and by the end he’s on his way to solving it. I like to have a character who doesn’t even know how fucked up they are. And then maybe his epiphany or change comes in the form of… getting a glimpse like, ‘wow, I’m a mess.’ Maybe he sorts it out; maybe he doesn’t. But… I mean, that’s as happy an ending as you’re going to get from me.”

In fiction, at least. In real life, Pernice is living his own happy ending, with a wife (ex-Jale-bassist-turned-designer Laura Stein) and child at home in Toronto, as well as a quiet place to write and revise the day’s work. (“I was constantly revising what I did while I went, and I don’t know how many people said, ‘You can’t write a book like that.’ It’s like, ‘Who the fuck are you?’”) He’s content to keep his glimpses of frustrated, confused and frequently drunk people confined to where they belong: in his books, and at his concerts.

“I remember one time,” he says, a wry smile pulling back the stubble around his mouth, “I had toured over 200 shows in a calendar year. It was about a month later and I was going to go do some recording. I was in my house and I needed a cable or a tuner or something. So I have a case, and I opened it up and it was just a waft of club. The smell that came out of this case… I was like, ‘holy shit, that’s Minneapolis. That’s, like, the 400 Bar.’ And I was, like, ‘wait a second.’ Closed that case back up. That was enough.” 

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WORD ON THE STREET:
THE EYE WEEKLY MUSIC STAGE LINE-UP

Sandro Perri, noon
This indie-folk innovator has been quiet lately, but a lesser artist could ride out the three incredible albums he released in ’06 and ’07 (Tiny Mirrors, Plays Polmo Polpo and the debut from Glissandro 70 with Craig Dunsmuir) for a lifetime.

Stuart Berman, 1pm
A witness to the local music landscape for over a decade, EYE WEEKLY’s online editor has earned ample praise for This Book Is Broken: A Broken Social Scene Story. He’ll examine the evolution of the T.O. scene along with panelists Sarah Liss (CBC.ca/EYE WEEKLY), Jonny Dovercourt (Wavelength/The Music Gallery) and Dalton Higgins.

Bruce Peninsula, 2pm
Their music feels as old and rugged as the land itself, but this 12-piece choral-folk orchestra only emerged with their critically acclaimed debut, A Mountain Is A Mouth, last winter.

Dalton Higgins, 3pm
With his deep knowledge of global music and culture, it's incredible that the much-needed Hip-Hop World: A Groundwork Guide is only this veteran journalist and documentarian's third book.

Joe Pernice, 4pm
Joe will be interviewed by Damian Rogers about his new novel.

Damian Rogers, 4:30pm
Her poems have been published in Brick magazine, The Walrus and more; you may also know her as EYE WEEKLY’s Wellness columnist.

Ghost Bees, 5pm
Sari and Romy Lightman are twins as well as musicians, and on their celebrated album Tasseomancy, their music merges the spooky and the surreal.

 

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