Days Like Today

'[Rachel Ingalls'] work combines subtlety and horror, magic and stark realism, Greek tragedy and happily-ever-afters. Her characters are true to life even as they embody classical archetypes – Icarus, Odysseus, Psyche, people wandering too long, striving too far, watching their loved ones by faint lights. In Days Like Today [2000], her tenth volume of fiction, Ingalls brings together five works linked by war and fate… Ranging in length from a dozen to a hundred pages, some of the pieces have the elemental focus of short stories, others the psychological depth of novels… together they constitute something rare and fine… Character is Ingalls's greatest strength… Her people are four-dimensional, rich in pasts and hopes as well as physicality. Ingalls documents truths that are stranger than fiction, and it is this that makes Days Like Today a remarkable collection.' Tobias Hill, Guardian