Mrs Caliban Author:Rachel Ingalls This short, allegorical, and seductively odd novel was first published in 1983, and was hailed as both a feminist and a literary "tour-de-force." Reading it today, more than twenty years later, it still has enormous power, less from its theme than from its deep sadness of love unfulfilled. Dorothy is a housewife in a loveless, unfaithful marriag... more »e who encounters a passionate sea monster named Larry in her kitchen. Six foot seven, frog-like, "well-built", and muscular, Larry is on the run, having escaped from an experiment. The two become tender, clandestine lovers. No one seems to notice, or catch the two of them during their trips to the beach, although Dorothy's friend Estelle notices a change in her. Early on, though, the reader is told that Dorothy hears soft voices that she knows aren't real, hallucinations she has had since the death of her son during what should have been routine surgery. Is Larry then just a fantasy, or is he real? Does Dorothy need the idea of an alien lover to be able to accept the truth about her husband and marriage? The delight in this book is that the author never answers these questions. In the end, it doesn't matter whether he was real or not, only that Dorothy had him in her heart.« less