False bingo : stories
(Book)

"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." --,cover page 4.