#Titanuary #BookReview ‘The Grip Of It’ by Jac Jemc

About the book…

Jac Jemc’s ‘The Grip Of It’ is a chilling literary horror novel about a young couple haunted by their newly purchased home.

Published in 2019 by Titan books, it tells the story Julia and James, a young couple haunted by their new home. The move-prompted by James’s penchant for gambling, his inability to keep his impulses in check-is quick and seamless; both Julie and James are happy to leave behind their usual haunts and start afresh. But the house, which sits between lake and forest, has plans for the unsuspecting couple…

The architecture becomes unrecognisable, decaying before their eyes. Stains contract and expand, mapping themselves onto Julie’s body in the form of bruises; mould taints the water that James pours from the sink. As the couple search for the source of their mutual torment, they become mired in the history of their peculiar neighbours and the mysterious previous residents of the house.

Written in eerie, powerful prose, ‘The Grip Of It’ is an enthralling and psychologically intense novel that deals in questions of home: how we make it and how it in turn makes us, inhabiting the bodies and the relationships we cherish.

With undertones of Shirley Jackson and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, this very modern gothic tale looks at the disintegration of a marriage from within and without. Whether the haunting of Julia and James is symtomatic of their secrets and state of denial,or as a consequence of where they moved to, is up to the individual reader. At one point, neither can remember who saw the house, who suggested moving there, and a sense of dislocation appeared as to whether the house even exists in what we know as the real world. It is only when relatives come to stay and leave much earlier than intended due to the atmosophere of the house, that the concept of it as a building became real to my mind.

Up to that point, I was unsure whether the house was created out of the state of their marriage or was a real building, especially when they were looking at the other buildings in the neighbourhood, and saw items in them which reflected their own. It creates a state of tension as to who is ghosted and who is haunted, if, indeed, anyone is.

Strangely appearing bruises, smells and sounds without an identifiable source, a neighbour with a dark past who might be spying on them, all these things contribute to a sense of dreamlike seperation from what we consider reality. That is when we , the reader, realise we are gripped by the tale, both aware of this and seperate from it. It’s beguiling, engaging and entirely terrifying as page by page,a conclusion, an explanation is advanced.

Whether the source of the haunting happenings is something you agree with or not, in the act of reading, we become voyeurs of the action and as such ,are commanded to bear witness to self destruction, death and disorder. Best read in one short, satisfying session, ‘The Grip Of It‘ is ultimately a satisfying and very modern take on the relationship novel, shot through the image of a haunted house.Scary, skin crawling ghost tales don’t come much better than this.

About the author…

Jac Jemc is the author of My Only Wife, a finalist for the 2013 PEN / Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award, and the short story collection A Different Bed Every Time. She has been the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Professional Development Grants, and in 2014 was named one of 25 Writers to Watch by the Guild Literary Complex and one of Newcity’s Lit 50 in Chicago. She recently completed a stint as the writer in residence at the University of Notre Dame and currently teaches at Northeastern Illinois University and StoryStudio Chicago, as well as online at Writers & Books and the Loft Literary Center, and she is the web nonfiction editor for Hobart.

Twitter @TitanBooks @jacjemc

Links-http://www.jacjemc.com/