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INTRODUCTION

Six-year-old Lily Newman accompanies her prim mother, Charlotte, on a late-summer visit to her Aunt Beth's sheep farm in the middle of wild welsh countryside. The free-spirited Beth, whom Charlotte considers to have deeply disappointed their parents by marrying a humble carpenter, lives with her sixteen-year-old son and eleven-year-old triplet daughters, her husband having died two years earlier.

While staying on the farm, Lily becomes fixated with a fairy tale one of her triplet cousins makes up about a kindly Hermit, the Mushroom Man, who lives with the fairies and who can turn people invisible, and vanishes one morning into the nearby forest. The adults share the horrifying belief that a child predator lurks in the wild, while the children wonder if, indeed, their story about the Mushroom Man and his invisible-making powers has come true, and round up a band of children from the village and head for the forest. And matters become more complicated with the arrival of Lily's father, who is cheating on his wife with Lily's au pair; a lonely minister who pines for Beth; and two bumbling police officers.

Combining the beauty of the Welsh countryside, the magic of Celtic myth, the spark of family drama, and a wicked sense of humor, The Mushroom Man resounds with hope for squabbling siblings, for parents confounded by their children—and for everyone longing for the wonder of love.

ABOUT SOPHIE POWELL

Sophie Powell was born in 1980, and split her time growing up between London and a sheep farm in the Brecon Beacons in Wales, where she often went mushroom picking with her grandmother, sister and brother. She graduated in Classics from Cambridge, and is now a student in New York University's creative writing program. Powell lives in New York, and is working on her second novel.

Praise

Praise for The Mushroom Man and Sophie Powell

"A charming and thought-provoking tale that walks the line between fantasy and reality with all the skill of a tightrope artist. The British-born Powell, now an NYU grad student, has made a splendid start."—Kirkus Reviews

"Powell makes a charming debut with this touching comedy that explored childhood fantasies as well as messy adult truths about family relationships. Powell's wry, playful tone, assured voice and unerring eye for detail make her one to watch."—Publishers Weekly

"The alarmingly young author Sophie Powell makes an impressive debut...[with] wonderfully believable characters, from the touchingly silly triplets to the fractious grownups. Powell's novel has the comprehensiveness of a long, perfect short story: organic and harmonious, with no false moves."—Baltimore Sun

"The Mushroom Man is a remarkable and spirited debut from a precocious talent. Sophie Powell has a keen eye and a big heart. She is a writer from whom we ought to hear a great deal—and I have no doubt that we will."—Nicholas Christopher

HOW SOPHIE POWELL CAME TO WRITE THE MUSHROOM MAN (in her own words):

We have a sheep farm on the slopes of the Black Mountain in the Brecon Beacons in Wales, which we bought when I was ten years old, (my dad is from Wales and wanted to buy something near to where he grew up). I have always traveled down from London at every opportunity. We have someone who lives on-site and permanently manages it for us (we have 360+ breeding ewes so it's a lot of work), but whenever I am down there I always love helping out: For example at Easter time, I help with the lambing (literally—I have pulled many lambs who need a helping hand out from their mothers) and in the Summer I help with sheering (in fact sheering sheep requires great skill—there are even sheep shearing championships for the best sheep shearer in Wales and New Zealand: a farmer friend of mine who sometimes helps out on our farm once won the New Zealand sheep shearing championship). Additionally, I am an expert dirty-pen-cleaning person, an expert gathering-and-directing-a-flock-of-sheep-on-an-ATV(farming motorbike)-with-a-sheep-dog person and an expert injecting-ill-sheep-with-antibiotics person.

Our farm is appropriately entitled Rhandir-y-beirddion, which translates as "Land of the Poets" in Welsh, and it really is the most magical place on earth: It overlooks a Roman castle (Carregg Cennen Castle) and even has a tumulus (a Roman burial mound) by the stream. Regarding the latter, the neighboring farmer insists that he once heard the thundering of horse hooves and the clanking of Armour of a Roman soldier ghost when at dusk he was taking his cattle to drink from the stream. And the neighboring farmer's a sane, intelligent guy too.

So I had to set my first proper novel in the most magical place in the world to me. In particular, amidst the urban, chaotic jam-packedness of New York, I hankered after the rural stillness of our sheep farm in Wales.

The fairytale of the Mushroom Man came entirely from my imagination. I have always been fascinated by fairytales and myths, a fascination I was allowed to foster while studying classics at Cambridge University.

And the irony and humor which characterizes the novel is always oscillating between addressing serious issues and making fun of everyone and everything. The children's world versus the adults' world—whose vision is the most correct?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the ways in which The Mushroom Man explores the border between fantasy and reality.
    
2. In what ways does Amy's fairy tale about the Mushroom Man reflect/anticipate the actual events in the novel?
    
3. The relationship between the Mushroom Man and the deceased Mr Griffiths is alluded to throughout the book. Discuss.
    
4. Whose interpretation of Lily's disappearance is correct—the Adults' or the Children's?
    
5. How far is this novel a reverence to the child worldview?
    
6. Discuss the line "And Lily has created a new magic. A magic breathed onto everyone as imperceptibly as the whisper of an invisible fairy"(193).
    
7. Is The Mushroom Man successful in walking a fine line between the irony and humor, addressing serious issues and making fun of everything?
    
8. What makes The Mushroom Man a fairytale?