About this item
Finalist for the Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award, Dan Chaon's Best of 2017 pick in Publishers Weekly, one of Vol. 1 Brooklyn's Best Books of 2017, a BOMB Magazine "Looking Back on 2017: Literature" Pick, and one of Vulture's 10 Best Thriller Books of 2017.Jac Jemc's The Grip of It is a chilling literary horror novel about a young couple haunted by their newly purchased homeTouring their prospective suburban home, Julie and James are stopped by a noise. Deep and vibrating, like throat singing. Ancient, husky, and rasping, but underwater. "That's just the house settling," the real estate agent assures them with a smile. He is wrong. The move -- prompted by James's penchant for gambling and his general inability to keep his impulses in check -- is quick and seamless; both Julie and James are happy to start afresh. But this house, which sits between a lake and a forest, has its own plans for the unsuspecting couple. As Julie and James try to establish a sense of normalcy, the home and its surrounding terrain become the locus of increasingly strange happenings. The framework -- claustrophobic, riddled with hidden rooms within rooms -- becomes unrecognizable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall -- contracting, expanding -- and map themselves onto Julie's body in the form of painful, grisly bruises. Like the house that torments the troubled married couple living within its walls, The Grip of It oozes with palpable terror and skin-prickling dread. Its architect, Jac Jemc, meticulously traces Julie and James's unsettling journey through the depths of their new home as they fight to free themselves from its crushing grip.
About the Author
Jac Jemc's story collection False Bingo will be released in 2019 and her novel Total Work of Art will be published in 2021, both from FSG. She is also the author of The Grip of It, My Only Wife and A Different Bed Every Time. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming from Guernica, LA Review of Books, Crazyhorse, The Southwest Review, Paper Darts, Puerto Del Sol, and Storyquarterly, among others. Jac has completed residencies at the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, Hald: The Danish Center for Writers and Translators, Ragdale, the Vermont Studio Center, Thicket, and VCCA. She's taught creative writing at the University of Notre Dame, Northeastern Illinois University, Illinois Wesleyan University, St. Lawrence University, Catapult, The Center for Fiction, StoryStudio Chicago and The Loft.
