This post was first published with The Cascade on November 18, 2024.

Hello dear readers,

Are you looking for an author whose work will leave you breathless, your eyes darting between shadows when you’re trying to sleep at night? No? Too bad! You’ve found it with Jac Jemc.

Jemc, a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow and creative writing professor at University of California San Diego, has published five works of fiction — both novels and short story collections. Her books have both been nominated and won a number of awards, including the Chicago Review of Books Award for fiction and the Paula Anderson Book Award. Her most recent novel, Empty Theatre, was published in 2023.

Unlike most of my reading — where I choose a book at random from the library shelf or thrift store — this one is a bit more special. Not long after my partner and I started dating, he made it his mission to find the best horror novel for me. Nothing over-the-top bloody; nothing that uses shock value in place of good writing. Through his research, he found it: Jac Jemc’s The Grip of It (2017). 

One thing I need to mention: I am a spooky kind of guy, but I’m also extremely picky when it comes to horror media. I don’t want guts and gore; I don’t want mental illness as a flimsy, end of story excuse (looking at you, Stephen King). I want work that’s concise, something that uses the fears that crawl through us, creeping its way into our bones — The Grip of It does just that. 

If you know me in real life and have asked for a book recommendation, this is one you’ll have heard of before — I’ll take any opportunity to yell about how effective it is. That’s because Jemc’s writing is so subtle that you don’t know you’re frightened until you’re halfway through the book and you set it down. Was that something just crawling out of the corner of your vision? Were those fingers edging away under the bed?

Forget about the fingers. We’re talking about Jac Jemc, and her ability to carve a home into a narrative that’s not only haunted, but possessed as well — with human emotion; with the raw, real narrative of living, nestled in the unholy worlds she creates. Those poor people; they never know what hit them.

I want to leave you with a quote from The Grip of It, to give you some comfort when you’re thinking about the creatures lingering just outside your window at night.

“What is worse? To be confronted with an obvious horror, or to be haunted by a never-ending premonition of what’s ahead?”

Happy reading!

—Catherine

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