I usually read literary fiction and mystery, and nonfiction on subjects that interest me, but I do believe in stretching one's literary legs, although I don't like to go too far afield. Enter Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls, a "rediscovered" classic I've been meaning to read since it was "quietly" published in 1982—long before the film, The Shape of Water.
The premise: One day, a human-shaped sea monster shows up at the home of an unhappily married woman, having escaped from a lab where he was mistreated. Usually I read "sea monster" and run for the hills, but bear with me. Ingalls's incredible talent is her ability to render the surreal real. When you read this account, it all sounds perfectly reasonable. One reviewer described Ingalls's work as "hallucinatory realism." The quotidian difficulties of hiding, feeding, and, well, relating to a 6 foot 3 green being are described in matter-of-fact, often very funny prose so that you forget that "Larry" (of course it's Larry) is not human. He is just a misunderstood sea monster trapped in and learning to navigate a world not his own that is, at best, confounding.
There is, of course, a central question in Mrs Caliban, (a book John Updike called "a perfect novel"), which doesn't reveal itself until the end, and which I will leave to you to discover. That question, plus its novella length (111 pages) and cost ($13.95), makes it perfect for book clubs.
And it just so happens that the Norwich Bookstore is launching a forgotten classics book club and has chosen Mrs. Caliban as the first book. The book club, named Deep Cuts Book Club and hosted by Emma Kaas, will meet at the bookstore on Tuesday, June 18th at 6pm. So stretch your legs and read Mrs. Caliban, and then we can talk.
Carin Pratt is one of the remarkably knowledgeable crew at the Norwich Bookstore—and an ardent recommender of books. Before she landed in these parts, she spent 27 years at CBS News, including two decades as the executive producer of Face the Nation.