![]() ![]() I haven’t even been sure what to call them-novellas, maybe, or long short stories, that little phrase “long short” ringing as ridiculously as “psychological.” So I decided to write to Ingalls-through an emissary, as she prefers-asking her a bunch of questions that come up when I think about her work, and wondering if she had a title in mind for this newly-cobbled trio. Two of these works are frightening and one less so, although I sometimes change my mind about which one that is. ![]() She has been published irregularly, in different configurations, and this is another one. ![]() Gathered in Three Masquerades are three works of hers. What work isn’t psychological? A better word might be “spooky,” although that sounds too cheap for an author who often conjures a genuine sense of the unearthly. When called upon previously to describe her work, the word that came out of my mouth was “psychological,” which seemed utterly meaningless the moment it was out loud. One finds eerie coincidence and comic irony, a touch of the macabre. The plots are dramatic, even exaggerated, but the books themselves are quiet and short. But while she does not loom large on the literary landscape her work is indelible in the brain. Caliban, her best-known book, is not very well known the highest profile her work has received is that it has been adapted several times into films you likely have not seen. The fiction of Rachel Ingalls has haunted me for years, but faced with the task of introducing her work I’m not sure what to say about it. ![]()
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