Introduced by Patricia Lockwood: Gothic tales from the mistress of the weird behind frogman-romance Mrs Caliban for fans of Shirley Jackson, Lucia Berlin and Patricia Highsmith.

‘Wonderful.’ Margaret Atwood ‘Genius.’ Patricia Lockwood ‘Remarkable.’ Joseph Heller ‘Perfect.’ Max Porter “Immensely skillful’. Ursula K. Le Guin ‘Tender, erotic, singular.’ Carmen Maria Machado ‘Still outpaces, out-weirds, and out-romances anything today.’ Marlon James ‘One of the greatest short story writers we have.’ The Times ‘You are in masterly hands as Ingalls lures you into a swamp of violence and magic.’ Sunday Times

After a one-night-stand with the Angel Gabriel, a monk is transformed into a pregnant woman. Lost in the fog, two visitors are lured into a ruined candlelit mansion. A wife confiscates her husband’s homemade sex doll, only to demand her own. Great-aunts warn of the deadly skin of the pearlkillers. Rachel Ingalls’ incomparable novellas are masterpieces: surrealist, subversive, tragicomic. Prepare to meet what lurks beneath .

‘Macabre, fantastic and haunting … One of the most brilliant practitioners of American Gothic since Poe … Read her at your peril.’ Independent

‘Fables whose unadorned sentences belie their irreducible strangeness … In her vision of intimacy and interdependence, you’re simply not safe until everybody else is dead … Brilliant.’ New Yorker

‘Resists definition … Her work combines subtlety and horror, magic and stark realism, Greek tragedy and happily-ever-afters … Rare and fine. ’ Guardian

‘Idiosyncratic, haunting, masterly … A modern fabulist making myths which explode into strangeness.’ Observer