The Mushroom Man

by Sophie Powell

Book Overview

Six-year-old Lily Newman accompanies her mother, Charlotte, on a late-summer visit to her Aunt Beth's sheep farm in the middle of wild Welsh countryside. Beth, whom Charlotte considers to have greatly disappointed their parents by marrying a humble carpenter, now lives with her son and triplet daughters, her husband having died two years earlier. While staying on the farm, Lily becomes fixated with a fairy tale her cousins make up about a Mushroom...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399149635
• ISBN13: 9780399149634
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 6.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Powell's words are like whimsical fairies in your head

I can't begin to express who wonderfully writtin this book is. Powell's writing is so amazingly different from the norm. It is extremely experimental, and yet very very accessible. Powell has done the impossible: she has created something completely new it the English language, and at the same time, made so very accessible for every and anyone (literary minded or not).This is book is a good start to bring good literature back to the masses.

Beautiful, absolutely, utterly beautiful

The prose caught me off guard because it's so different from I guess what other people like to call standard writing. Every single detail jumped out and spun around (I don't know if what I wrote makes sense). But the writing moves very fast. It spins. I don't how to describe it, other than that it is simply beautiful.I like how Sophie Powell jumps from scene to scene, going from vignette to vignette, almost like a movie trailer, which makes the reader's experience with each character extremely intense. As surreal as the writing makes everything, the characters feel very real, from widow reflecting on what she did with her husband's ashes to a man cheating on his wife with a young, tartly nanny to his wife who seems to know about the love affair but tolerates it and just has to get away to her daughter, the central character of the story, oblivious to everything because she is so caught up in a world of magic and wonder. What I liked about the book is that even though it talks about fairy tales and such, it does not hesitate to show the sexually deviant, neurotic world that children eventually see when they grow up--and yet at the end, it closes with a such light, magical touch (nothing too pat), a very light and inspirational message that no matter what the world is like, there is great significance around the event of a child who has not lost the gift of wonder.

I just starting reading this book yesterday . . .

and so far I'm like totally enthralled!I actually bought this book at a Barnes and Noble in New York, and there she was, the author, giving the reader. I didn't know who she was, nor did I hear of her book (I later learned this is her first book), so I sat and listened to her read and bought myself a copy while I was at it.So I started reading it before I went to bed . . . and I ended up going to bed at 3 in the morning, before I finally made myself decide to sleep. It is a crisply told story about two sisters and their children in pastoral Wales. Usually, I'm very cynical about cutesy stuff, but this stuff had me laughing out loud. It was so completely endearing with rival sisters locking each other in the bathroom, little girls picking their nose--and mushrooms. I couldn't believe I started thinking of mushrooms as being magical!I was a little skeptical about the title, because you have to admit that as titles go, this one is quite odd, but after listeing to Powell speak about her childhood in Welsh country with curmudgeonly relatives, I knew there was a good story behind it--and I have was not disappointed once I started reading.Her words really scream out with an energetic youth, and seeing her read, I realized that she IS quite young herself. Which is another delight. That someone so young has so much to say, and to say it in a completely strange and unique manner.

I'm so glad I came across this book.

I always do searchs on this page for new books by first time novelists. It's a good way to keep on top of who's who in the next coming years. I would definately have to say that Sophie Powell is going to be up there. The title is a little weird, even a little bland, and misleading. Because I thought this was a children's book. After three words, i was like no this isn't. And is it a book for adults or what! The language is so fresh. It just flows through your ears as delicately as music. I really think this book is an absolute most definate you-can't-ignore-this-rec must read.Once again. Amazing. This is the type of book you read once, then again. Then again and again.

An unexpected delight!

Wow. Once again: wow! Her prose is like a roller coaster ride, extremely fun, making scenes and life spin so fast, it's like nothing you've ever experienced before. I was impressed with how tight this whole thing is--this being a first novel and all. After I read this book, I did a little research on the author and found out that she was only 22 when she published this book! It's an extremely well-written story full of innocent candor and dark sexual irony. It does not unnecessarily dwell on things. Sophie Powell avoids every single pretentious mistake so commonly seen in other writers' first books. I am sure even greater works will most defiantely be penned by Powell. This work is also great. It's absolutely great! I'm not very good at reviews, and usually don't write them, but after reading this book, I just had to write one. This is one of those books that makes you grab someone and tell them that they ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK!