101 Horror Books: The Grip of It – Descend Into Madness

The Grip of It by Jac Jemc follows a couple’s move into a new house. As we know, this is one of the most dangerous times. You can never be sure if the house you move into is haunted. They don’t have to disclose those things. Julie and James find this out the hard way. The longer they stay, the more unstable they become. Slowly, we find out more about what happened in there and why the townspeople are wary of it.

I didn’t know what to think of this one as I read through it. I wasn’t a big fan of the short chapters and constant POV changes. To me, that made it feel disjointed. Some of that disorientation was likely intentional. A way to keep the reader slightly off-keel. It just didn’t appeal to me. Once the story was wrapped, the endless dangling strings left me unsatisfied. It was more than just ambiguous. There were moments of tension and unease that were surprisingly well built in such short intervals and the tension between our couple is incredibly well done. Overall, The Grip of It wasn’t one of my favorite books. It had a very different approach to the haunted house genre that worked sometimes and didn’t others. The story is interesting and unexpected, but the end is unsatisfying.

Let’s dive into the plot.

At chapter one we head into the ‘couple moves into a haunted house in a horror novel’ stage of our journey. I love when we jump right into it. From the beginning, it seems this house is a little unusual. It has strange hidden spaces and makes somewhat impossible noises. Our trusty real estate agent assures the couple that it’s nothing but the house settling. Sure.

Julie and James make the purchase despite some oddities, since they desperately need a fresh start. The marriage is in a rough place because of James’ gambling. A new location, new jobs, and getting out of the old environment are bound to be good for everyone. Stress relieving even. The next-door neighbor is even like a security system. Staring out at them all day long.

The two settle into their new jobs. Julie meets up with an old friend, Connie, who works with her now. James goes out for drinks with someone from work. They attempt to fit into the small town life they’ve chosen, so different from the city they came from.

They also explore the property around the house. Some woods that butt up against a beach. Sounds pretty awesome. There are a few children that play in the woods and may or may not be real. We never really get clarification on that. And Julie finds a grave out back. She seems pretty disturbed by it, but I bet they are extremely chill neighbors.

The first sign that things are going super wrong is that Julie keeps getting odd bruises. She can’t remember any injury and they seem to grow strangely. Throughout the book, she sees some medical professionals about it and they are shockingly unconcerned about them (other than briefly thinking she may be a victim of domestic violence). They find nothing serious, so I guess they think she’s just clumsy.

They decide to upgrade the house. It’s a fixer upper for sure. As they meet people around town, they find out the house has a bit of a spooky history. Locals talk about the woman who lived and died there. Her body was never found. But when the police went in, there were strange drawings all over the walls. And some say the woman is still living in the house.

Julie and James decide to pay a visit to their ever watchful neighbor. Turns out his name is Rolf Kinsler and his is, um, unpleasant. He shouts at them a bit and kicks them out. This man has a story. And is a cautionary tale to never try to make friends.

Things around the house continue to increase in their strangeness. They hear odd noises with no discernable cause, see shadows looming in the corners, and the spacial layout makes little sense. At times, it seems like they walk through Rolf’s house instead of their own. There’s some strange connection between the two.

One day, they return home and find that Rolf seems to have broken into their home. When James tries to confront him, he doesn’t answer the door. James lets himself in. As he walks around, he finds newspapers with the headline, ‘Kinsler Family Tragedy’. James is determined to investigate what happened to the family next door.

James’ dad and stepmother come over to the house for the weekend. The visit is intended to help James and Julie distract themselves from the stress in their lives. It doesn’t work out that way. As the family is sleeping, each person feels a sharp breath over them and smells something terrible. James’ stepmother was already feeling unsettled in the house, and this is the final straw. She leaves the house, warning them they too should leave.

James researches the Kinsler Tragedy and learns that Rolf and his brother were playing in the trees when the brother fell and died. The family struggled to recover from the death. Rolf’s mother was inconsolable. Eventually, the family had another daughter, but she was strange. Always making odd drawings and eventually disappearing. The family was living in Rolf’s house when the tragedy occurred.

Things between Julie and James are breaking down further. They are both keeping their increasing fears about their home secret. James takes a day off work to spend time at a museum in the city without telling Julie. While there, he passes out. I guess he’s getting caught in that lie. Of course, Julie thinks he’s gambling again.

Julie gets stuck in a room of the house that doesn’t seem to exist. James rushes home from work to rescue her, but she manages to free herself and they can’t find the room again. After getting free, Julie finds Rolf’s childhood journal. It sheds some light on what happened to the family after their young son’s death. She does not tell James about the journal for some reason. The couple’s marriage is further fracturing.

By now, the house is a mess. Julie isn’t showering or brushing her hair and is covered in bruises. James has stopped going to work to investigate what is happening at the house. Things are so bad that Julie’s friend Connie takes her back home to shower after how she showed up to work. They have officially lost it.

Julie finds a cave in near the beach behind their house. She takes a look. Lemons, don’t take a look. It’s never the right time for caving. Inside, the walls are covered in strange drawings and Rolf is there! He tells Julie that his sister made the drawings but disappears before she can get more information.

Rolf never returns. After several days, Julie calls to report him missing. The police don’t seem very worried but are a little suspicious of James after the two mention that Rolf was prone to spying on them through the window. Julie and James go back to the cave to look for him themselves, but find the cave has changed. The writing is gone. Was it ever there?

Connie offered to let James and Julie stay at her place for a bit so they can get out of the creepy, clearly haunted house they now own. They take her up on it and head over. They have a great evening out. Julie has a new bruise. One that moves even as they watch it, but they still enjoy the meal. But when they return to Connie’s a fresh drawing is on her wall. She freaks. The police are called and since Julie and James mention that this has happened at their house too, James becomes an instant suspect. (He was the last to leave Connie’s) Feeling unsafe, Connie heads to her sister’s and James and Julie return home.

Back at home, the two write a list of everything they’ve done wrong. Julie is convinced that they can cleanse the house by cleansing their own sins. Julie can’t read James’ writing. They fall further into madness, screaming at each other, questioning if they are just pulling elaborate pranks, and what might be real.

*Insert weird sex scene* I don’t know if Stephen King fully invented the horror weird sex scene, but I blame him for these since he introduced me to them. Given the circumstances, I do not understand how they felt it was sexy time.

Julie attempts to go to work but ends up hiding in the bathroom most of the day. The detectives question both Julie and James about the drawings again. The two are thinking the other might be responsible now. James going so far as to write confessions in Julie’s handwriting. When she gets home and sees them, she isn’t sure if she wrote them or not. She sees James sleeping but isn’t sure if it’s him or just someone that looks exactly like him. The tether to sanity is broken.

The following morning Julie has a long diatribe stream of consciousness for a while. It scares James, who she still thinks isn’t him. It ends when she insists that James should fly. He points out she isn’t flying, which she takes as a challenge (be careful what you say to the insane) and ties a rope around her waist and jumps from the roof. Spoiler, girly cannot fly.

She’s still shouting insanity when James gets her down and rushes her to the hospital. Her injuries are severe. She falls in and out of consciousness. Continuing to question what is real. It takes 8 days for her to wake up again. Around this point, we learn that James has been struggling with an allergy to ergot. It’s an interesting plot point. Has this all been the result of ergot poisoning?

They return home and decide to sell. Rolf still hasn’t been found, but curiosity continues, so James and Julie break into his house. We find out that his mother blamed him for her son’s death. Claiming Rolf pushed him. Years later, Rolf handed her a bottle, asking what it was, and she drank it. It was poison. Rolf’s sister was found dead on the beach. He lived a hard life.

Julie and James return to as normal a life as possible. They look for an apartment in town and put the house up for sale while making major improvements. When asked why they’re selling, they say the house is too big. In the end, we aren’t sure exactly what happened. But it seems the couple are passing the problem along to the next family.

So what do you think? Haunting or ergot? Is the house full of the ghosts of the Kinsler family or the more mundane fungal spores?

The Switch House by Tim Meyer is up next.