The End of Tragedy

by Rachel Ingalls

Paints a landscape of expectations gone askew, menacing efficient machines, and rich range of interactions

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, American

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Rachel Ingalls grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She held various jobs, from theatre dresser and librarian to publisher’s reader. She was a confirmed radio and film addict and started living in London in 1965. She authored several works of fiction—most notably Mrs. Caliban—published in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This 1987 collection of four novellas was underwhelming in comparison to Mrs. Caliban, with its clever matter-of-fact surrealism and snappy humor.

'Friends in the Country' read like a lackluster episode of The Twilight Zone or an 80s B-grade horror movie riddled with tired old tropes. Lots of tense build-up to a rather disappointing reveal at the end.

'An Artist's Life' was mostly just a depressing tale of (not surprisingly) an artist's life and did not fit in with the other three, except for maybe on the shared ground of general disillusionment and failure at life.

'In the Act' had sort of an amusing premise involving a dissatisfied married couple and the husband's special invention. It was probably the highlight, but certainly didn't carry the collection.

'The End of Tragedy' did a decent job with maintaining suspense but was an otherwise humdrum tale of a long con featuring an array of boring flawed humans. The ending felt too inevitable.

Probably the biggest failure is that the majority of the characters in the collection are flattened to the point where they're interchangeable between stories. I had no feeling toward any of them so was not rooting for or against them, which ultimately resulted in a meaningless reading experience.

I was looking forward to reading more of Ingalls after enjoying Mrs. Caliban but if these stories are representative of her other work then I'm stopping here. But I'm hoping someone who's read her more widely has further insight.

[CJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rachel Ingalls is one of my favorite female writers and I wish she was more widely known. The title story lagged a little and in my opinion was the least engaging of the bunch, but the rest were phenomenal.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never really been a fan of the "novella" format but I may change my mind based on this book. These four stories are all tight, original and ok, a little creepy! But in a good way. One story involves frogs and my summer house on Lake Champlain is rather overrun with frogs this year. fortunately the night we saw a tree frog climbing up the outside of the sliding glass door backlit by the full moon was NOT also the night I read this story or nightmares would have ensued. But the story with the living doll was my favorite. Or maybe the one with the actress, no, the one with the frogs. ok I'd better go read this book again.

[Gene Knauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another of Rachel Ingalls' books that I've reread. Two of the stories in particular are just astonishing: "In the Act" and "The End of Tragedy". She's really a master of the novella. Weird people, page-turning plots. Fantastic.

[Rhod · Rating 5 out of 5]

As far as Rachel Ingalls goes, this is really a fun collection of stories, especially the last two.

[Wendy]

read again Jan 1998

[Harriet Leeck]

Can t remember too much about this ones
so it was possibly not much of her strongest books
but could be my failing memory as well...

[Mikee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four novellas. All different. All good. Eerie and original