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    Mrs. Caliban
    Mrs. Caliban
    Mrs. Caliban
    Audiobook3 hours

    Mrs. Caliban

    Written by Rachel Ingalls

    Narrated by Amy Landon

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    About this audiobook

    It all starts with the radio. Dorothy's husband, Fred, has left for work, and she is at the kitchen sink washing the dishes, listening to classical music. Suddenly, the music fades out and a soft, close, dreamy voice says, "Don't worry, Dorothy."

    A couple weeks later, there is a special interruption in regular programming. The announcer warns all listeners of an escaped sea monster. Giant, spotted, and froglike, the beast-who was captured six months earlier by a team of scientists-is said to possess incredible strength and to be considered extremely dangerous.

    That afternoon, the seven-foot-tall lizard man walks through Dorothy's kitchen door. She is frightened at first, but there is something attractive about the monster. The two begin a tender, clandestine affair, and no one, not even Dorothy's husband or her best friend, seems to notice.

    Selected by the British Book Marketing Council as one of the greatest American novels since World War II, Mrs. Caliban, much like Guillermo del Toro's film The Shape of Water, uses an inter-species romance to explores issues of passion and loneliness, love and loss-and in its own wryly subversive way, it blends surrealism, satire, and a strong female perspective.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 9, 2018
    ISBN9781977388742
    Author

    Rachel Ingalls

    Rachel Ingalls (1940–2019) grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and moved to London in 1965. Theft, her literary debut, won the 1970 Authors’ Club First Novel Award. Her 1982 novel, Mrs. Caliban, was named one of the twenty greatest American novels since World War II by the British Book Marketing Council. She wrote fourteen novels and short story collections, including Times Like These, Binstead’s Safari, and I See a Long Journey.

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    Reviews for Mrs. Caliban

    4/5

    224 ratings16 reviews

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    • 1/5
      It says 30 day free trial then the same day I get charge 8.99!!
    • 4/5
      Brilliant. Beautiful. Haunting. This is what novels should be like. This is why I read.
    • 5/5
      This book is not monster erotica. The sex scenes are devoid of nervous systems and are presented as objective events without a single nerve end sparking, not a single drop of sweat: “They went swimming together and then made love on the beach” (59). Why?The story begins with Dorothy (the central character) hearing “special voices [that] . . . had a soft, close, dreamlike quality” (6). We learn of her recent trauma and soon the monster appears: “She was as surprised and shocked as if she had heard an explosion and seen her own shattered legs go flying across the floor” (19). This surreal image characterizes the reality portrayed throughout the novel. What’s fascinating is Ingalls’ narrative point of view. Pulling just back from full omniscience, the reader is left to discern Dorothy’s reality and how trauma has pushed her into a protracted nerve-deadening delusion
    • 4/5
      Very much a novel about the married lives of women, about desire, and about betrayal. At once incisive and very sad, an unusual story of a relationship between a woman and a creature.
    • 4/5
      A good novella tells a full story in an economy of space. Well-developed characters, a strong story arc, and writing that will immediately pull the reader in. Ingalls has achieved all three in her odd little work about an unhappy woman who falls in love with a sea monster escaped from a research institute. Yeah, I know. But it works! From the first pages, I was completely engaged in the story and eager to see where it would go.
    • 4/5
      This novella is difficult to describe. I think of it like Desperate Housewives meets Land of the Lost - the Sat. AM sea creature TV show of my childhood. The lizard-like beings with bulbous eyes infiltrated more than one of my nightmares, but were so clearly "fake" that fear was a laughable response. Dorothy is going about her usual housework in what feels like a 1950s or early 60s suburban home when Larry aka Aquarius the Monsterman shows up in her kitchen. He has escaped from an Oceanic Research Institute and seeks asylum from her. He is very sympathetic, with good manners, the ability to communicate in English, and an obvious desire for her. Dorothy feels needed and wanted, which hasn't been the case in her life with Fred for years. He is cheating on her she suspects, and the two have a history of loss and sorrow after their son Scotty died young and they lost a baby soon after that. With his vivid green color, Larry brings Dorothy's bland world to life. She care for him and cares about him, teaching him things about American social mores and interaction, food, TV and radio. They take nighttime walks together where he won't be seen and swim at the beach. They become lovers - ew, but that part is thankfully mentioned in passing, and really the tale becomes one of acceptance and challenging the suburban norms. She manages to keep him a secret until several events coalesce involving Dorothy best friend and an intersection with her own family in a Desperate Housewives type scenario. This is really a satire and a challenge to how we want to perceive our lives - definitely a commentary on women's roles and a host of other issues I'm still thinking about. Worth it for the novelty.
    • 5/5
      i loved this. it shores up so many questions about humanity, fidelity, whether you can ever know a loved one.....with digs at consumerism, capitalism, patriarchal roles, and a complex and often joyful and barbed look at a female friendship.
    • 5/5
      Finally loving, finally living...

      This is a book where the contents are everything and the language is very much constructed in a thoughtful and simple way. No meanderings are found here. Ingalls has written a masterpiece which could serve as a construct to understanding what some writings of love, alienation, and humanity can be like, over the course of a few dozen pages.

      Also, this book is very funny at times.

      “Come on back for a cup of coffee?” Estelle asked.
      “I’d love to, but it’s got to be quick. Fred’s bringing somebody back from the office.”
      “And you’re scurrying around to fulfil all your wifely obligations. My God, I don’t miss that.”
      “You’re kidding. They’re getting spaghetti and they can like it.”

      [...]

      She accepted a second cup of coffee, first trying to persuade Estelle to add some water to it. Estelle was outraged. She declared that it would kill the taste.

      “Then don’t fill it up. Honestly, Estelle.”
      “Honestly yourself.”
      “I don’t know why it doesn’t have any effect on you. I love it, but two cups make me feel dizzy. And like my scalp might suddenly rise up and fly away. Then there’s something over here—here, is that where the liver is?”
      “Dorothy, that’s where the imagination is.”

      [...]

      “How bad is it?”
      “What?” Estelle asked.
      “The hangover.”
      “I’ve got a hangover, all right. I’ve got a hangover from living forty-four long years.”

      Then there are serenely human moments quickly described throughout the book:

      She ate an early supper with Larry. They took a lot of extra time over their coffee. He wanted to know all about the Cranstons. The more Dorothy told him, the more he seemed fascinated. What struck him as most interesting was the fact that although Dorothy and Estelle talked about the Cranstons being “friends”, neither of them genuinely liked the couple. “Is this usual?” he asked. After some thought, Dorothy said she figured it probably was.

      All in all, this book is highly recommendable.
    • 3/5
      This book..... is odd. Not in a bad way. Just. Odd. Satirical, weird, and unique; this story of an unhappy housewife who encounters a seven foot tall lizard man is compelling in a weird way. Mrs. Caliban starts falling for the creature practically instantly. She is so starved for affection that this curious, avocado loving, green, reptilian man practically falls into her bed and starts to take center stage in her life. Her husband doesn't notice, her best friend doesn't notice. It doesn't even seem to matter. She knows she can't keep this up forever though; he wants to go home and everyone in the area is on the lookout for him as he killed his captors when he escaped captivity. Bizarre and intriguing; it's quite short and I read it in an hour. I don't know what to make of it, so let me know if you ever read this one!
    • 5/5
      Dorothy and her husband Fred live in the same house but live separate lives. One night a frogman stranger enters the house as Dorothy is alone in the kitchen. Listening to the radio she knows he has escaped from the Institute and is wanted for murder. She hears his story and becomes close to him.This is a different type of read for me. I liked Dorothy. Fred is a jerk. Larry (the frogman) is a necessary companion for her. Dorothy keeps Larry secret--her own delicious forbidden secret. Unfortunately, other secrets come out. Lives are destroyed and ruined. The story is a quick read but not a light read. There is much to think about--would I hide Larry, would I become lovers with him, would I want to end a marriage, how far would I go to protect him. There are layers to this book and more questions than answers but it will stay with me after I close the cover.
    • 5/5
      A marvelous, inventive novel about loyalty, friendship, and love.
    • 4/5
      I was lead to this strange little novel by the movie Shape of Water which bears a similar story line. Dorothy is a repressed housewife who has given up on love when "Larry" a six foot inch frog creature walks in. In a very matter of fact way Larry and Dorothy begin an affair and he lives in a seldom used room of the kitchen and comes out when Dorothy's husband Fred leaves for work. This somewhat simple story is meant to illustrate the meaningless existence Dorothy had been living in a loveless marriage and how through Larry she rediscovers herself. This book was written in the 80's so while some things feel dated the examination of a failing marriage is timeless.
    • 4/5
      I read this slender volume in an evening while my spouse was watching a Hallmark Christmas movie. Really. While he was vegging out to a feel-good wish fulfillment movie, I was reading a feel good wish fulfillment novel about a housewife estranged from her husband after the loss of two kids and a dog and his series of affairs, which housewife meets a frog man named Larry who escaped from a science lab where he underwent cruel tests and learned English with the help of electric shocks, so that Larry killed the scientists to escape, and the sad wife and Larry commence an affair that includes her hiding him in the guest room and serving him avocado salad and their enjoying night time swims and walks in other people's gardens, then some punks attack Larry and he has to defend himself and, well, the kids don't make it...Really. And the housewife's best friend is dating two men and her kids are troubled and the ending is very convoluted with the philandering husband meeting an appropriate end. Did I wish I had watched the Hallmark movie instead of reading about a frogman creature learning about human experience and a housewife telling her story of alienation and loss and loneliness?Heck, no.Mrs. Caliban was first published in 1982, which explains the use of the phrase "pontificating" because I remember people did that back then, and author Rachel Ingalls had a flash of fame before people forgot her novel. But it was noticed by some very important writers such as Ursula la Guin and Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike and Eleanor Cotton (The Luminaries) and New Directions said it knocked their socks off and so they republished it this year and I am sure it will make connections with readers today. Is Larry real or an alienated housewife's fantasy? Who cares. Just read it.I received a free book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
    • 5/5
      A brief, beautiful, impossibly dense novel that deserves to be much better known than it is. Sure, it's plot is silly -- lonely California housewife falls in love with the creature from the black lagoon -- and its surfaces are shiny and new-wave cheerful. But it's also delightfully skewed, a British writer imagining sunny California while refusing to alter her diction one bit. And there's a profound melancholy just underneath the prosperous, glitzy surface that goes way beyond any familiar "bored suburbanite wife" tropes that you might be familiar with -- this little book contains more betrayals than the average Shakespeare tragedy. The book's center, though, is the romance between Dorothy and Larry, the sea monster who unexpectedly enters her life and wins her heart. It sounds like a gag, but Ingalls portrays their relationship as remarkably sensual -- her descriptions of Larry's large, lean, muscled frame are a wonderful evocation of female desire. Even better is the fragile, heartfelt interplay that Ingalls describes between the two main characters as they leave their preconceptions behind and explore each other's mindsets, demonstrating how a particularly deep connection with someone else allows you not only to explore them but also to question the things you'd thought immutable about your own life. As Dorothy, our suburban heroine learns of all the betrayals that have caused her life to come undone, Larry's alien nature comes to represent a sort of hope: while humans may be self-seeking backstabbers, Larry's disarmingly honest, markedly non-human, and unabashedly sensual worldview holds out a sort of hope that living beings might learn to relate to each other in a better, kinder way. It doesn't quite work out, of course, but, scales and fins aside, "Mrs. Caliban" is an unforgettable love story of the strangest sort. "Mrs. Caliban" is also a remarkably multifaceted little book, and especially so because it barely breaks the hundred-page mark. In this sense, it reminded me of Muriel Spark's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," whose text revealed its different aspects of itself like a finely cut prism. "Mrs. Caliban" isn't quite as perfect a novel, but readers may nevertheless detect some feminist critique, a discourse on the lure of the exotic, a criticism of the modern media landscape, and a heartbreaking case study in humankind's tendency to shun and destroy those it considers too different from itself. Still, the question remains: why did Dorothy take in, shelter, and, ultimately, love Larry, while others shunned and feared him? Where did her empathy and identification with him spring from? The answer may be complex, or as simple as simple understanding. Anyway, this one is highly recommended to everyone. I knew when I was only halfway through it that I'd have to read it again. And maybe a third time, too.
    • 4/5
      An odd little book. Tons to talk about herein.
    • 5/5
      The books starts out as a seemingly normal short story about a typical suburban marriage. The couple are childless and their relationship is slowly falling apart. The story turns from focusing on the dynamics of a modern relationship when a 6 foor four frog on the lam from a reserach facility shows up in their kitchen and begins an illicit affair with the housewife. Even at that, it's not science fiction. A very entertaining and thought provoking little book.