In the Act
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3.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From Rachel Ingalls, the author of Mrs. Caliban, another delicious, highly improbable, and hilariously believable tale of a wife’s scorched-earth rebellion
In the Act begins: “As long as Helen was attending her adult education classes twice a week, everything worked out fine: Edgar could have a completely quiet house for his work, or his thinking, or whatever it was.” In Rachel Ingall’s blissfully deranged novella, the “whatever it was” her husband’s been up to in his attic laboratory turns out to be inventing a new form of infidelity. Initially Helen, before she uncovers the truth, only gently tries to assert her right to be in her own home. But one morning, grapefruit is the last straw: “He read through his newspaper conscientiously, withdrawing his attention from it for only a few seconds to tell her that she hadn’t cut all the segments entirely free in his grapefruit—he’d hit exactly four that were still attached. She knew, he said, how that kind of thing annoyed him.” While Edgar keeps his lab locked, Helen secretly has a key, and what she finds in the attic shocks her into action and propels In the Act into heights of madcap black comedy even beyond Ingalls’s usual stratosphere.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ingalls's funny and striking posthumous story (after the recent reissue of Binstead's Safari) begins with housewife Helen wondering about the mysterious things her husband, Edgar, is doing in their attic. Helen and Edgar's marriage is boring and routine, and Helen knows something is afoot with Edgar's "experiments," which he says aren't dangerous, despite the frequent explosions and screaming. One day, Helen goes into the attic and discovers a lifelike robotic doll named Dolly, which, once turned on, is realistic enough to pass for an actual person. Helen, "quivering with rage, shame and the need for revenge," responds by stuffing Dolly into a suitcase and storing her in an airport locker. The wild plot hits another gear when Ron, a two-bit criminal, steals Dolly from the locker. Ingalls (1940–2019) acutely explores the discontent burbling under the surface of a "normal" suburban home and tracks the weird ways it boils over, but there's also a sly examination of how true love is more than just desire: it requires selflessness and sacrifice. Ingalls keeps things moving at a fast pace, and it all culminates in a dizzying, unforgettable finale. This odd little lark packs a sneaky punch.
