She gives us mushrooms by tom offland
MUSHROOM HUNTING AT THE END OF THE WORLD
She Gives Us Mushrooms is the riveting and strange story of Bella, a mushroom hunting tour guide living in the woods, who finds the popularity of her tours growing rapidly out of control whilst old friends from her past appear uninvited.
Thoughtful, psychedelic, rainy and enigmatic. This debut novel follows Bella for three eventful days as she contends with a looming ecological disaster, lurking drinking problem, endless mushroom hunters, mysterious happenings and a world that might be ending.
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Praise & Reviews for She Gives Us Mushrooms
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If Withnail and I stumbled through the Doors of Perception into a Silent Spring... None of these things quite captures the atmosphere of this psychedelic gem - but then, that's because it's a very peculiar book in the best possible way. The drunken protagonist muddles through a confusing and psychedelically-infused woodland post-apocalypse.
The tone is suspended at the point where an intoxicated night out with fine friends begins to teeter into the edge of bad trip, with a sense that everyone is walking a tight-rope of denial over the environmental changes unfolding around them.
It's simultaneously bittersweet/uplifting seeing the enduring humanity of the characters caring for each other, and also unsettling to see them (and by extension humanity) carry on in denial (or bemused unquestioning acceptance) about what's happening around them.
The attempts of characters to make sense of their predicament with wildly poetic and tenuous theories, with an absurdity that borders into the mystical, is touchingly heartfelt. Reminded me a bit of the surreal wit/existentialism of Russell Hoban's Kleinzeit. Wonderfully original, surreal and unsettling.
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“So I thought about ash. And I realized I don’t know anything about ash. I don’t know if ash is only ever the ruins of something having been burnt. I’d like to think that ash was something broader. That many things could result in ash. It felt like Olema and I were generating ash by just sitting there on a rotten log shoulder to shoulder passing the whisky between us and that the ash was rising off us like snow drifting up in reverse.”
Behold the reveries that wiggle forth from the magical mind of the writer Tom Offland. Every page of this book is so packed with insight on everything that is human, and everything that is nature (including of course, mycelium); reading it felt like lightbulbs going off one after another in my mind as I made my way through the thickly forested rain-drenched world of Tom’s creation.
The fact that the book takes place almost in real time over the course of three days makes it possible to slip seamlessly into its narrative, almost like you’re experiencing it right along with the characters. Simple narratively, yet intricately crafted, it’s the perfect book for anyone who may find themselves tucked away inside a little wooden cabin on a rainy day in the woods — or anyone who would like to be.
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The story itself is compelling - dark and mysterious - but what I enjoyed most about this book is Offland's writing style, which is distinct and insightful. The way that he describes human interactions and ponderings have stayed with me:
"And sometimes I sense somebody standing behind me. Looking over my shoulder. But there is never anybody there. Maybe it is my potential other selves. Keeping track of what might have been. Maybe that's what ghosts are. They're not the dead. Or sleep paralysis. Or hallucinations. Or extraterrestrial visitors. Or fraud. But rather reflections of what might have been. Haunting our decisions."
About the Author
About
Tom Offland is a UK born painter and author living in San Francisco. His writing has appeared in Litro, Visions, The Junket, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Best of British Fantasy 2019 and elsewhere. Shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award and Christopher Tower Prize, Tom was also a commended Foyles Young Poet of the Year. He holds a Masters of Mathematics from Warwick University.
More of Tom's Work
Promo Art by Tom Offland
