False Bingo: Stories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780374538354)

Combines the otherworldliness of Jeff VanderMeer's "Annihilation," the menacing irony of Shirley Jackson and the cold feminist fury of Margaret Atwood --The New York Times Book Review

Named a Fall Read by The Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune

The mundane becomes sinister in a disquieting story collection from the author of The Grip of It

In Jac Jemc's dislocating second story collection, False Bingo, we watch as sinister forces--some supernatural, some of this earth, some real and some not--work their ways into the mundanity of everyday life.

In "Strange Loop," an outcast attempting to escape an unnamed mistake spends his days taxiderming animals, while in "Delivery," a family watches as their dementia-addled, basement-dwelling father succumbs to an online shopping addiction. "Don't Let's" finds a woman, recently freed from an abusive relationship, living in an isolated vacation home in the South that might be haunted by breath-stealing ghosts.

Fueled by paranoia and visceral suspense, and crafted with masterful restraint, these seventeen stories explore what happens when our fears cross over into the real, if only for a fleeting moment. Identities are stolen, alternate universes are revealed, and innocence is lost as the consequences of minor, seemingly harmless decisions erupt to sabotage a false sense of stability. "This is not a morality tale about the goodness of one character triumphing over the bad of another," the sadistic narrator of "Pastoral" announces. Rather, False Bingo is a collection of realist fables exploring how conflicting moralities can coexist: the good, the bad, the indecipherable.

Author: Jac Jemc
ISBN-10: 0374538352
ISBN-13: 9780374538354
Publisher: MCD X Fsg Originals
Language: English
Published: 10/08/2019
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.40h x 5.00w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2019
Publishers Weekly 08/19/2019
Booklist 09/01/2019 pg. 46
Shelf Awareness 10/11/2019