28 Best fiction books like In the Act by Rachel Ingalls

Cover of In the Act by Rachel Ingalls

In the Act

By: Rachel Ingalls

3.72

Format: 64 pages, Hardcover

From Rachel Ingalls, the author of Mrs. Caliban , another delicious, highly improbable, and hilario…

"A woman, she thought, can get the eyes and everything else right without any trouble: her creative power is inherent. Men can never create; they only copy. That's why they're always so jealous."

-Rachel Ingalls, In the Act

If you liked the fiction plot in In the Act by Rachel Ingalls , here is a list of 28 books like this:

Cover of A Shining by Jon Fosse

1. A Shining

By: Jon Fosse

3.49

Format: 56 pages, Paperback

A man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and lef… read more

Similar categories in Jon Fosse's A Shining book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • novella
  • short stories
  • fiction
"but you can’t just touch a whiteness like that. because if you did you’d probably get it dirty. and imagine getting something so white dirty"

-Jon Fosse, A Shining

"Es ist auch nicht zu begreifen, es ist etwas anderes, vielleicht etwas, das man nur erlebt und das nicht wirklich geschieht. Aber geht es an, dass man so etwas einfach erlebt. Alles, was man erlebt, …"

-Jon Fosse, A Shining

Cover of The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota

2. The Spoiled Heart

By: Sunjeev Sahota

3.82

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Nayan Olak is a man with a past. Haunted by the sudden death of his young son and his mother and dr… read more

Similar categories in Sunjeev Sahota's The Spoiled Heart book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
Cover of Open Throat by Henry Hoke

3. Open Throat

By: Henry Hoke

4.01

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

A lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion narrates this star-making fever dream of a novel. A quee… read more

Similar categories in Henry Hoke's Open Throat book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • novella
  • literary fiction
  • fantasy
  • fiction
Cover of Blackouts by Justin Torres

4. Blackouts

By: Justin Torres

3.77

Format: 306 pages, Hardcover

From the bestselling author of We the Animals, Blackouts mines lost histories--personal and collect… read more

Similar categories in Justin Torres's Blackouts book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
Cover of So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan

5. So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

By: Claire Keegan

3.99

Format: 128 pages, Hardcover

Librarian's Note: This is the entry for the short story collection. Please don't combine it with th… read more

Similar categories in Claire Keegan's So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • novella
  • short stories
  • fiction
"You know what is at the heart of misogyny? When it comes down to it?’ ‘So I’m a misogynist now?’ ‘It’s simply about not giving,’ she said."

-Claire Keegan, So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

Cover of Parade by Rachel Cusk

6. Parade

By: Rachel Cusk

3.70

Format: 198 pages, Hardcover

From the exhilarating mind of Rachel Cusk, author of the Outline trilogy, Parade disturbs and defin… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Cusk's Parade book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"He knew that [his work] embodied change, and he wasn’t interested in change. He was interested in the fragments that change leaves behind in its storming passage toward the future."

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"Not to be understood is effectively to be silenced, but not understanding can in its turn legitimise that silence, can illuminate one’s own unknowability. Art is the pact of individuals denying socie…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"Sanity and insanity were not opposites but rather were the two faces of inanimate matter, the point at which the existence of consciousness can get no further in breaking down the existence of substa…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"The impulse to have a child is very often a response to the woman’s own childhood, as though her childhood has left her incomplete, or has taken a part of her that she is driven to find again. The st…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

Cover of The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt

7. The English Understand Wool

By: Helen DeWitt

4.10

Format: 69 pages, Hardcover

Maman was exigeante—there is no English word–and I had the benefit of her training. Others may not … read more

Similar categories in Helen DeWitt's The English Understand Wool book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • novella
  • humor
  • short stories
  • fiction
Cover of My Death by Lisa Tuttle

8. My Death

By: Lisa Tuttle

3.98

Format: 93 pages, Paperback

A widowed writer begins to work on a biography of a novelist and artist—and soon uncovers bizarre p… read more

Similar categories in Lisa Tuttle's My Death book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • novella
  • short stories
  • fiction
  • fantasy
Cover of Do You Remember Being Born? by Sean   Michaels

9. Do You Remember Being Born?

By: Sean Michaels

3.83

Format: 335 pages, Hardcover

FINALIST FOR THE 2023 PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN AWARD FOR FICTION Scotiabank Giller Prize-winner… read more

Similar categories in Sean Michaels's Do You Remember Being Born? book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • science fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"I opened my eyes: soft light, morning, cool. The shimmer of a dream as it departed. I have always enjoyed waking up to different weather, as if the world's been up to something in the night."

-Sean Michaels, Do You Remember Being Born?

"A poem-shaped space, I thought. A poem-shaped space. I tried to hold a poem-shaped space in my mind. Sometimes the work of life is like preparing a bedroom for a guest: sweeping the floor, emptying t…"

-Sean Michaels, Do You Remember Being Born?

"Some of what makes us human is our smallness. The brevity of our lifespans, the shortness of our memories, the narrowness of each person's field of vision. My Marian-ness is in the slender sample of …"

-Sean Michaels, Do You Remember Being Born?

"Art is husbandry, I thought. It is an experiment in imaginary kinship. Bring together this mare and this stallion; this marriage and this moon; this sun and this daughter. Poems, paintings, pop songs…"

-Sean Michaels, Do You Remember Being Born?

Cover of Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky

10. Poor Deer

By: Claire Oshetsky

3.99

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A wondrous, tender novel about a young girl grappling with her role in a tragic loss—and attempting… read more

Similar categories in Claire Oshetsky's Poor Deer book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • fantasy
  • fiction
"She has just learned that some things are forever, and other things are never-again."

-Claire Oshetsky, Poor Deer

"On this day the girl feels so much love pouring out of her mother that she is certain her mother has the power to save her. Soon she will come to understand she can't be saved."

-Claire Oshetsky, Poor Deer

Cover of Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

11. Alphabetical Diaries

By: Sheila Heti

4.02

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A thrilling confessional from the award-winning, beloved author of Pure Colour. Sheila Heti kept a… read more

Similar categories in Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

Cover of My Work by Olga Ravn

12. My Work

By: Olga Ravn

4.01

Format: 416 pages, Paperback

In this radical, funny, and mercilessly honest novel about motherhood, Anna is utterly lost after g… read more

Similar categories in Olga Ravn's My Work book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
Cover of The Road to the City by Natalia Ginzburg

13. The Road to the City

By: Natalia Ginzburg

3.73

Format: None pages, Paperback

Delia is one of five children, growing up in a poor Italian village. She is seventeen, and dreams o… read more

Similar categories in Natalia Ginzburg's The Road to the City book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • novella
  • short stories
  • fiction
Cover of Hangman by Maya Binyam

14. Hangman

By: Maya Binyam

3.59

Format: 194 pages, Hardcover

An enthralling and original first novel about exile, diaspora, and the impossibility of Black refug… read more

Similar categories in Maya Binyam's Hangman book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literature
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
Cover of Wrong Norma by Anne Carson

15. Wrong Norma

By: Anne Carson

4.33

Format: None pages, Kindle Edition

As with her most recent publications, Wrong Norma is a facsimile edition of the original hand-desig… read more

Similar categories in Anne Carson's Wrong Norma book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • short stories
"Last thing: one Sunday evening about a year before all this we were on the telephone, my mother and I; it was just after we sold the house and she’d moved to the facility, where she was allowed a sma…"

-Anne Carson, Wrong Norma

Cover of The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

16. The Hearing Test

By: Eliza Barry Callahan

3.40

Format: 162 pages, Hardcover

When the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a dee… read more

Similar categories in Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literature
  • novella
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"He said that... helplessnes could give way to wonderful things, that helplessness looks like a very large net with very large holes and that I must be willing to trail that net in the sea for some be…"

-Eliza Barry Callahan, The Hearing Test

"He said that... helplessness could give way to wonderful things, that helplessness looks like a very large net with very large holes and that I must be willing to trail that net in the sea for some t…"

-Eliza Barry Callahan, The Hearing Test

Cover of In the Act by Rachel Ingalls

17. In the Act

By: Rachel Ingalls

3.72

Format: 64 pages, Hardcover

From Rachel Ingalls, the author of Mrs. Caliban , another delicious, highly improbable, and hilario… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Ingalls's In the Act book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • american
  • literature
  • novella
  • humor
  • marriage
  • short stories
  • fiction
  • science fiction
  • fantasy
"A woman, she thought, can get the eyes and everything else right without any trouble: her creative power is inherent. Men can never create; they only copy. That's why they're always so jealous."

-Rachel Ingalls, In the Act

Cover of The Singularity (New York Review Classics) by Dino Buzzati

18. The Singularity (New York Review Classics)

By: Dino Buzzati

3.53

Format: 136 pages, Paperback

In this prophetic allegory about artificial intelligence by a renowned figure of twentieth-century … read more

Similar categories in Dino Buzzati's The Singularity (New York Review Classics) book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literature
  • fiction
  • science fiction
Cover of Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia

19. Of Cattle and Men

By: Ana Paula Maia

3.97

Format: 99 pages, Paperback

Animals go mad and men die (accidentally and not) at a slaughterhouse in an impoverished, isolated … read more

Similar categories in Ana Paula Maia's Of Cattle and Men book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • novella
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"Senhor Milo knows cattlemen, he's cut from the same cloth. No one goes unpunished. They're men of cattle and blood."

-Ana Paula Maia, Of Cattle and Men

"Two enclosures, one for cattle and one for men, standing side by side. Sometimes the smell is familiar. Only the voices on one side and the mooing on the other distinguish the men from the ruminants."

-Ana Paula Maia, Of Cattle and Men

"Edgar picks up the mallet. The steer comes up close to him. Edgar looks into the animal's eyes and caresses its forehead. The cow stomps one hoof, wags its tail and snorts. Edgar shushes the animal a…"

-Ana Paula Maia, Of Cattle and Men

"For a few moments, Edgar Wilson yields to the late afternoon sun that has not yet fully set, but that is rushing headlong into a moonless, starless night. He knows how to listen in silence, even when…"

-Ana Paula Maia, Of Cattle and Men

Cover of Emergency by Kathleen Alcott

20. Emergency

By: Kathleen Alcott

3.84

Format: 208 pages, Hardcover

A woman finds a photograph of her deceased mother in a compromising position on the wall of an art … read more

Similar categories in Kathleen Alcott's Emergency book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • short stories
  • fiction
Cover of An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky

21. An Inventory of Losses

By: Judith Schalansky

3.36

Format: 253 pages, Hardcover

Each disparate object described in this book—a Caspar David Friedrich painting, a species of tiger,… read more

Similar categories in Judith Schalansky's An Inventory of Losses book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literature
  • short stories
Cover of The Famous Magician by César Aira

22. The Famous Magician

By: César Aira

3.61

Format: 60 pages, Hardcover

A certain writer (“past sixty, enjoying ‘a certain renown’”) strolls through the old book market in… read more

Similar categories in César Aira's The Famous Magician book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • novella
  • short stories
  • fiction
Cover of Spadework for a Palace by László Krasznahorkai

23. Spadework for a Palace

By: László Krasznahorkai

3.92

Format: 96 pages, Hardcover

Spadework for a Palace bears the subtitle “Entering the Madness of Others” and offers an epigraph: … read more

Similar categories in László Krasznahorkai's Spadework for a Palace book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • novella
  • short stories
  • fiction
Cover of A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre

24. A Leopard-Skin Hat

By: Anne Serre

3.76

Format: 122 pages, Paperback

A quintessential early novel about an intense friendship, by the winner of the 2020 Prix Goncourt d… read more

Similar categories in Anne Serre's A Leopard-Skin Hat book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • fiction
Cover of Reproduction by Louisa Hall

25. Reproduction

By: Louisa Hall

3.82

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A lucid, genre-defying novel that explores the surreality of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood … read more

Similar categories in Louisa Hall's Reproduction book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • american
  • fiction
Cover of Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories by Sarah Coolidge

26. Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories

By: Sarah Coolidge

4.01

Format: 232 pages, Paperback

A boy explores the abandoned house of a dead fascist… A leaked sex tape pushes a woman to the brin… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Coolidge's Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literature
  • literary fiction
  • short stories
  • fiction
Cover of 3 Streets by Yōko Tawada

27. 3 Streets

By: Yōko Tawada

3.23

Format: 80 pages, Hardcover

The always astonishing Yoko Tawada here takes a walk on the supernatural side of the street. In “Ko… read more

Similar categories in Yōko Tawada's 3 Streets book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • novella
  • short stories
  • fantasy
  • fiction
Cover of Concerning the Future of Souls by Joy Williams

28. Concerning the Future of Souls

By: Joy Williams

4.05

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

“Quite possibly America's best living writer of short stories.”—NPR“Williams is a writer for our b… read more

Similar categories in Joy Williams's Concerning the Future of Souls book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • american
  • humor
  • short stories
  • fiction
  • fantasy
Cover of The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

29. The Coin

By: Yasmin Zaher

3.55

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling, far from home, as she gets… read more

Similar categories in Yasmin Zaher's The Coin book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"And the poet, he asked, who was it again? Aisha didn't know him, neither did Matthew. But, of course, Gregory did. He asked if he was the 9/11 denier. No, definitely not a denier, but very vocal when…"

-Yasmin Zaher, The Coin

Cover of Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler

30. Banal Nightmare

By: Halle Butler

3.64

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A ferocious novel by one of the boldest voices in American fiction and the author of The New Me, th… read more

Similar categories in Halle Butler's Banal Nightmare book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • literature
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
Cover of Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

31. Creation Lake

By: Rachel Kushner

3.67

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

From Rachel Kushner, a Booker Prize finalist, two-time National Book Award finalist, and “one of th… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake book and Rachel Ingalls's In the Act

  • science fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"Charisma does not originate inside the person called "charismatic." It comes from the need of others to believe that special people exist."

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"Plus, Lucien said, a lot of them had come from other social milieus and had tattoos from earlier lives, since people who change affinities are the same kinds of people who are attracted to the perman…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"My biker and these tramps, as people who organize their life around some subculture or other: People can sometimes pretend so thoroughly that they forget they are pretending. At which point, it could…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"I could sense him gathering a false hindsight that afternoon in the Place des Vosges, shaping a retrospective narrative, the thing a person tells himself about fate, about how everything had seemed f…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

6 Top fantasy books like In the Act by Rachel Ingalls

Transform Your Habits

Open Throat

Henry Hoke

4.01

Transform Your Habits

My Death

Lisa Tuttle

3.98

Transform Your Habits

Poor Deer

Claire Oshetsky

3.99

Transform Your Habits

In the Act

Rachel Ingalls

3.72

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20 must-read fiction books like The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Exhibit

R.O. Kwon

3.24

Transform Your Habits

Worry

Alexandra Tanner

3.36

Transform Your Habits

Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

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