Reviewed by Layla Khoury-Hanold
Part of what drew me to Fungal: Foraging in the Urban Forest (Wolsak & Wynn; June 2024) was the subtitle, particularly as people have become more interested in urban foraging and where our food comes from.
What I was delighted to discover about Ariel Gordon’s book is that in foraging for mushrooms, some edible, some not, she was also foraging for answers, a key to unlocking what it means to be human and part of an interconnectedness ecosystem. With her poet’s voice, keen sense of observation, and willingness to wade through the muck (literally and metaphorically), she has gifted readers with a beautiful essay collection that seamlessly weaves the natural and personal.
The first essay, “Mushroom Tourist,” put Gordon’s poetic prose on full display as she renders vivid descriptions of her mushrooming expeditions in various seasons. Of a small, gray-white, furred splitgill mushroom, she says, “It is the mushroom you would expect the White Witch to be wearing as decoration on her person/robes/carriage in Narnia.”
Some of the lines were so evocative, I had to read them twice. Describing springtime mushrooms on a log, she says: “A stack of creamy mushrooms on a downed log, like a plate full of pancakes plunked down in front of you.” Or in summer she describes, “An orange mushroom whose cap and gills resemble the skirts and petticoats of a cancan dancer, amongst sun-shot blades of brown-and-green grass.”
By letting us walk alongside her through her words, Gordon creates an intimacy with the reader that makes us sit up and take notice of key phrases that set the tone for the book:
“Some people use travel as a way of broadening their horizons; I use it as a way to add more mushrooms to my repertoire. It’s become my way of bringing in the wider world: when in doubt, walk under the trees and look for mushrooms.”
It’s a personal ethos she adheres to as a way to make sense of what is happening in her life, whether it’s navigating the mushrooming of her family (“Mushrooming”), a global pandemic (“Red River Mushroomer,” “Cultivator,” and “Red River Mudlarker”), chronicling the experience of working on a mushroom farm (Harvester), or paralleling her cervix and the elm disease overtaking the tree in her yard (“Rotten”). In terms of book structure, each of these major personal history plot points is placed according to their ascending stakes.
Within the structure of the essay collection, some of the essays also include experimental forms, including poems that are shaped like a mushroom or a half-jug/bottle that calls to mind treasures found while mudlarking along the banks of the Red River. Mudlarking is another consistent presence in Gordon’s life and essays, a complement to mushrooming her quest for understanding life. She compares and contrasts the two activities by saying, “Mudlarking is an exercise in brokenness, in being satisfied with brokenness, in our wonky humanity. It’s a reminder that we can make lovely things that will persist, but that they can’t and won’t remain intact… “Mushrooming” is about remembering the loveliness of the natural world. It’s about ephemerality: the mushrooms you find today, glorying in their shape and texture, will not be there in a week’s time.”
My favorite essay is “Eating My Words,” which takes a literal and meta dive into its title. With her friend Tom, another cultivator and lover of mushrooms, she tries feeding an actual copy of her book Treed to his mushrooms. “…by which I meant encourage them to grow onto/between its pages. My goal? To eat the mushrooms that had eaten my book. I wanted to eat my own words.” It is an engaging experience to follow along with the mushrooms’ progress, and gratifying for the reader to watch the author sate not only her curiosity, but her physical hunger too. She sautees her “bookshrooms” in olive oil until the gills are browned and eats them atop a toasted seedy bagel while reading the Saturday books section in the Winnipeg Free Press. “If you’re keeping track, I’m consuming book reviews printed on paper while also consuming a mushroom that consumed a book printed on paper about trees.”
The last essay, “Fun Gal,” brings into sharper focus the parallels Gordon draws between Mycelia networks of mushrooms and of people, and the way that our respective ecosystems are connected. It offers a final glimpse into the author’s mind and the gift that this essay collection imparts to the reader: “My life and my writing are devoted to showing people what is around them, drawing their attention to things they may not have noticed or spent very much time with.”
Fungal: Foraging in the Urban Forest will appeal to fans of essay collections, those curious about mushrooms in all their forms, and readers who appreciate beautiful prose infused with insight.
Layla Khoury-Hanold is a freelance journalist who has written for Food52, Food Network, and the Chicago Tribune, among others. She is currently working on her debut memoir. Follow her on Instagram @words_with_layla or on Twitter/X @words_withlayla.
