‘In the Act’ by Rachel Ingalls   (1987) – 64 pages

The publisher New Directions has created a new series called “Storybook ND” in which they republish certain novellas, so far nine, in a hard cover readable format. Their slogan is : “The pleasure of reading a great book from cover to cover in an afternoon”. One of the novellas they chose was ‘In the Act’ by Rachel Ingalls.

I am very familiar with the work of Rachel Ingalls having read several of her novels and stories, and I have been on the lookout for more of her work for a long time. Ingalls died in 2019. She left behind a number of novellas which were hard to market in her time. Her specialty was the long story.

In ‘In the Act’, Helen and Edgar get along fairly well as husband and wife, but they do have their problems.

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“Of course I am. I’m a woman,” she said. “You’ve already explained that to me.”

Husband Edgar does have his good points.

“He wasn’t too bad as a father. He actually wasn’t too bad anyway, except that sometimes he irritated her to distraction.”

Helen has taken many adult education classes which fill her days. When her classes end, Helen tells Edgar she’s going to stay home for awhile, and Edgar gets really angry. He tells Helen that his work requires that he have the house to himself. Why? Helen gets suspicious. Helen sneaks into his office and uncovers something that sort of looks like a woman. At that point Helen assumes it must be some kind of work project. A few days later she sneaks in again, and now it looks like a fully developed woman. She looks under her dress and then she gets angry herself. Dolly is beautiful and docile, every man’s dream. Helen stuffs Dolly into a suitcase and stashes the suitcase in a train locker near their house, unbeknownst to Edgar.

Later a professional thief named Ron steals Dolly out of the train locker and soon discovers her enticements. It’s “like having a wife, except that not being human, of course, she was nicer”.

Meanwhile Edgar finds out that Helen has taken his sex doll, and she tells him she won’t give it back until he builds her a male sex doll of her own.

That’s enough. ‘In the Act’ is a fun little novella and a fine reminder of Rachel Ingalls’ work.

Grade:   A