When a book arrives with a blurb recommending it from Jeff Vandermeer, you sort’ve know what to expect – expect weird. This creepy tale is definitely one that does that.
It is the story of Julie and James, a young couple who decide to make a fresh start and buy a new home. James is trying to break bad habits – he has an issue with gambling – and Julie welcomes the chance to focus on themselves rather than their friends.
The new house seems ideal – modern, spacious, between a lake and some forest, neighbours near but not too near. But then things change…
On our list of horror clichés you may find we’ve ticked a lot of them there. Isolated house in the middle of nowhere -check. Young couple with no social connections to those nearby – also check. We can also add creepy neighbours, dodgy local history, couple with relationship issues… But often with such stories part of the fun is the fact that everything is as expected. Readers relish the fact that clearly things are being set up for a fall. And so it is here.
What scores here is the vivid yet precise prose. This begins as if it was a normal, mundane mainstream novel, although one where each of the short chapters (92 in all!) are written alternately from the perspectives of James and Julie.
There’s a setup including some of the residents of this unnamed place in small-town America. There’s Rolf, a reticent neighbour. There’s the children who play ‘Murder’ in the woods at the bottom of James & Julie’s garden. Of course, the residents tell the couple that house has a mysterious past. It is undoubtedly quirky, having a strange subliminal hum that is there but usually barely noticeable. The layout is strange too, with doors that swing open to show secret passages and basement hidey-holes, which appeals to the couple’s joy in the unusual.
Initially the house sounds like a lot of fun and there’s a lot to enjoy in the first part of the book of this nature. Anyone who has ever bought a property will relate to this. Unlike, say, Hill House in Shirley Jackson’s novel, or Hell House in Richard Matheson’s The Legend of Hell House, it doesn’t feel wrong from the start. This allows the reader and the couple a semblance of normality before things change. And change they do. It’s not long before the couple begin to think they’ve made a mistake. Family cut short their visits, feeling uncomfortable, objects in the house disappear then reappear in other places. They both have strange dreams.
Over the next few weeks symptoms of decay and ruin begin to appear. Unusual stains appear in their pristine home, with the scary part being that such stains reappear in the same shape as bruises on Julie’s body without her being aware of how they appear. The piped water in the house becomes mouldy and there are strange smells that appear at random.
More worryingly we read of the effect of everything on James and Julie. Their work and social life suffer as a result, both being unable to focus on anything else but the house. They both experience blackouts, appearing in places that they have no recollection of getting to, including inside their neighbour’s house. At this point it is unclear whether the strange events at the house are a cause of the couple’s deteriorating mental state or a consequence.
And this is the real horror of the novel. As we read, the concept of a home as somewhere of refuge, a place of peace and tranquillity, becomes instead a place of decay and instability. The home becomes a scary place, a threatening environment that instead of creating calm can make you edgy and unsure of everything.
The short chapters reflect this distress as we progress. The alternating stories become stranger and increasingly dislocated – not only separate from each other but at times different for each person. In places it is as if there are two versions of the same person living in the same space.
At the same time, Rolf disappears. Further revelations lead to the discovery that he may be connected to the strange events, though not in a way we expect.
The ending has a resolution of sorts, although a lot of things are not. Much is unexplained and the reader will have to join a lot of the dots themselves. It is wrong to perhaps expect easy solutions here and I must admit that not all of it made sense to me, but I gather that that may be the point. What is important is that the reader is engaged enough to want to know how, why and whether the couple make it or not at the conclusion. The ending is appropriately unsettling.
As a psychological study (the book quotes Wittgenstein at the start!) on how your environment can affect and be affected by the decay of a relationship, the book is effective. By focusing on the importance of relationships and the importance of home as a place of stability, this is one that works its magic on you stealthily until you can’t put it down and will make you think about it after you have finished. The Grip of It is an exercise in precision that uses traditional tropes well to create a story that unsettles admirably.
The Grip of It by Jac Jemc
Published by Titan Books, September 2019
ISBN: 9781789091977
288 pages
Review by Mark Yon
