The Grip of It

THE GRIP OF IT is a psychologically intense literary horror novel that deals in questions of home: how we make it and how it in turn makes us A chilling literary horror novel, Jac Jemc's THE GRIP OF IT tells the story Julie 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.

Jac Jemc lives in Chicago. The Grip of It was released from FSG Originals (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) in August 2017, receiving starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and Library Journal, and recommended in Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Esquire, W, and Nylon.  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. Jemc is also the author of My Only Wife (Dzanc Books), named a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award;  A Different Bed Every Time (Dzanc Books), named one of Amazon's Best Story Collections of 2014; and a chapbook of stories, These Strangers She'd Invited In (Greying Ghost Press).