In her second story collection, False Bingo, Jac Jemc delivers 20 compact, disquieting stories that are starkly realistic yet tinged with a sense of otherworldly menace. Her first collection, A Different Bed Every Time, blurred the lines between reality and fantasy in short, unconventional tales. False Bingo continues this exploration of the intersection between tangible danger and unknown fears.
"Any Other," the first entry, acts as a warning to readers that they should be careful about believing what they read. An encounter in a coffee shop between a man and a woman leads to the kind of unexpected plot switch of which O. Henry would approve. "The Principal's Ashes," dark and funny, takes place in a Catholic elementary school. Mrs. Sayer, a second-grade teacher, begins her year by predicting which of her students will kill the class frog. She teaches Alan Ginsberg's Howl, and has the students re-create part of Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. Her goal is "to expose them to experience and knowledge beyond their years" in order to prevent their purity from delivering her the same fate that befell the principal.
Jemc's ability to build an undercurrent of threat in mundane situations is reminiscent of Shirley Jackson. She displays dexterity with characters and precision with words and sentences, creating small worlds that satisfy even as they disturb. Fans of Daisy Johnson and Helen Oyeyemi will relish these stories of mistrust, danger and regrets. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.