False Bingo : Stories

"e;Combines the otherworldliness of Jeff VanderMeer's "e;Annihilation,"e; the menacing irony of Shirley Jackson and the cold feminist fury of Margaret Atwood"e; --The New York Times Book ReviewNamed a Fall Read by The Boston Globe and the Chicago TribuneThe mundane becomes sinister in a disquieting story collection from the author of The Grip of ItIn 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 "e;Strange Loop,"e; an outcast attempting to escape an unnamed mistake spends his days taxiderming animals, while in "e;Delivery,"e; a family watches as their dementia-addled, basement-dwelling father succumbs to an online shopping addiction. "e;Don't Let's"e; 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. "e;This is not a morality tale about the goodness of one character triumphing over the bad of another,"e; the sadistic narrator of "e;Pastoral"e; announces. Rather, False Bingo is a collection of realist fables exploring how conflicting moralities can coexist: the good, the bad, the indecipherable.