Author: Sarah Lawson

“You can’t eat ’em if you don’t find ’em. And you can’t find ’em if you’re not outside. I know that’s where I’ll be,” writes Frank Hyman in his latest book, How to Forage for Mushrooms Without Dying: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Identifying 29 Wild, Edible Mushrooms. 

An avid outdoors enthusiast, Hyman has foraged for mushrooms since 2004, exploring regions around the world, and is certified to sell wild mushrooms in three U.S. states. Combining that appreciation and expertise with his enduring curiosity and wit, How to Forage for Mushrooms Without Dying is an easy-to-use, visually compelling, fun-to-read book for beginners. 

Hyman’s interest in the outdoors can be traced to growing up in the 1960s. He lived in Charlottesville with his family, attending second through fourth grades here, and recalls being one of a group of “boys on bikes who played kickball in the street … dammed up creeks … built forts in the woods, explored the local railroad tracks, and only had to come home when the streetlights came on.” He adds, “Like most people, I woke up each day hungry for breakfast and vitamin D!”

Hyman, a self-taught mushroom forager, now lives in the Piedmont Region of North Carolina, and has worked as a stonemason, woodworker, sculptor, and shrimper. He earned a degree in horticulture and has been an organic farmer, taught foraging classes, and written books on chickens as well as mushrooms. All told, Hyman counts nine avocations that have shaped his life’s work, intentionally foregoing what many would consider a traditional career. A self-proclaimed polymath, Hyman says, “all Homo sapiens are natural polymaths, but in the modern world too many people succumb to the notion that they only have the bandwidth to learn one or two professions in their life.”

“My success in all those activities stems from a commitment I made to myself as a teenager,” he says. “I found most kids kind of uninteresting and promised myself that I would give myself the freedom to go anywhere and do anything that inspired my curiosity. [I] kept that up as an adult and gave myself permission to buy any book, take any class, join any group that revolved around the things I felt enthusiastic about. When you make the choice to follow your curiosity and enthusiasm, you will find it is supremely easy to learn new things.” 

In How to Forage for Mushrooms Without Dying, Hyman emphasizes how foraging can be done safely by anyone who spends time orienting themselves to the basics. “You don’t have to know the names of every part of a mushroom or every phase of its growth to be a successful mushroom hunter,” he says. Small enough to fit in a fanny pack, the hike-ready guide is arranged around information that a novice will probably be able to visually identify with relative ease. 

The mushroom identification section of the book is sorted according to easy-to-discern aspects of mushroom species, including whether they grow on trees or in the ground, and whether they have gills or not. The 29 profiles of specific mushrooms share information about each specimen’s common names, comparable species and look-alikes, and tips for eating, preserving, and farming. Notes about where and when each type of mushroom is most likely to be found are also included, alongside Hyman’s thoughts about strengths and eccentricities of the species. His humorous anecdotes and unorthodox descriptions—he says a Lion’s Mane mushroom “Looks like Santa. Tastes like crab meat.”—punctuate the guide. 

Hyman also shares the popular wisdom that, “There are old mushroom hunters. There are bold mushroom hunters. But there are no old and bold mushroom hunters.” While urging caution and providing tips and tricks to aid in safe foraging, Hyman writes that, “in contrast to the many North Americans who are afraid of mushrooms, millions of foragers all over the world eat wild mushrooms throughout their lives without a problem.” He shares a closer look at the cultural norms that have led to this divide, also offering achievable precautions that any forager should take, for their own safety, that of friends and family who might share in the foraged bounty, and the mushrooms themselves. Indeed, while recommending moderation in foraging, Hyman also stresses that the main threat to mushroom species is not foragers, but rather climate disruption and the development of wild lands.

Filled with colorful images, the book is imbued with Hyman’s appreciation of mushrooms’ power to bring people together and create memorable experiences and meals. Travel stories from Hyman’s own life support this, reflecting the meaning and community that mushroom foraging can cultivate in life. 

“One of the great things about foraging anywhere is that the interest in being outdoors and in eating great, fresh food is that those two inclinations seem to screen out 99 percent of the assholes in the world,” he says. “Serious foragers tend to be kind and generous people.”

In The Good Ones, Polly Stewart’s new novel of literary suspense, a woman’s family and friends struggle to find answers about her disappearance in a small Blue Ridge town. Set almost two decades after Lauren disappeared, leaving behind a bloodied washcloth and little more, the novel centers on her old friend, Nicola, the protagonist, who remains haunted by the loss and continues to try to make sense of what happened. 

“I’ve always been most interested in unsolved disappearances,” Stewart says, “and I think it’s because of what the brain does when faced with a story without an ending—you try to work out a resolution for yourself, the same way we’re always trying to predict the ending of the story we’re reading before we get to it.”

After spending many years away, Nicola reluctantly returns to her small-town home to manage her own family matters, and long-hidden truths around Lauren’s unsolved case—and her problematic past—seem like they might finally be revealed. The Good Ones is a story of mothers and daughters, girlfriends and wives, and what it means to be “good” in any of those roles—and what the consequences may be for failing to do so. 

“Writing ‘bad’ women, and in particular bad mothers, is always difficult for me, but I also think it’s really important,” Stewart says. “We hear so much now about whether women in literature need to be likable. … I love reading about women pushing the boundaries of what’s seen as acceptable, and in my own work, I try to let the women in my books take full advantage of their agency, even if that means making choices that some people might think of as negative or destructive.”

Growing up in Radford, Virginia, and attending Hollins University before venturing elsewhere to eventually earn her Ph.D. in British literature in St. Louis, Missouri, Stewart now teaches creative writing at Virginia Military Institute and hosts The Craft of Crime Fiction interview series. Her debut novel, Wild Girls—written under her legal name, Mary Stewart Atwell—also explored themes of female friendship and the longing to escape small-town life, both of which are aspects of her own life that she grapples with in her fiction. 

“When I was growing up, I couldn’t wait to get out of the small town I grew up in,” says Stewart. “I was truly shocked by how much I missed the Blue Ridge when I moved away. I felt an almost physical longing for the landscape here, the feel of the air, the particular rhythm of the seasons. I’ve known people who grew up in beautiful places who don’t feel this at all, so it’s definitely not a universal phenomenon, but I’ve had to accept that I wouldn’t be happy living anywhere else.”

For Virginia readers, the connection jumps off the page, with descriptions of tubing on the river, watching local news, attending the big football game, and exploring abandoned houses, among other aspects of the day-to-day, that perfectly conjure regional small-town life. Still, it’s not all rose-colored nostalgia, as Stewart says, “At the same time, there are problematic aspects of Southern culture that I wanted to explore here, particularly white Southern masculinity.”

This particular form of masculinity shows up in a number of ways throughout the novel, and is not without psychological and physical violence. Through these interactions and dynamics, Stewart explores questions of power, gender, and sexual control while maintaining a focus on agency and empathy for survivors.    

Further, she reflects, “As I got to know the characters, I realized that their private and public selves diverged quite a bit, and I was interested in exploring that as a theme. It probably comes back to that question of what is and isn’t seen as socially acceptable for women: so many of us still internalize taboos when it comes to talking about sex and voicing desire, and I found that those questions played themselves out over the course of the novel.”

Though typically a planning-oriented writer—“I have the book I’m working on right now outlined on note cards on a giant bulletin board in my office”—Stewart found that that method did not work for these characters and the questions they explore in The Good Ones. She recalls, “I had Nicola’s voice from the beginning, and I knew the basic facts of Lauren’s disappearance, but nearly everything else came together through a process of writing, failing, and writing again.”

In line with that process, the novel’s most interesting theme is perhaps its exploration of how our past selves may influence who we become and whether it is possible to change, or to write our own ending. “For me, the realization that the possibilities for changing my life are pretty limited has come with a commensurate longing to live different lives and be different people,” says Stewart. “Luckily, because I’m a writer, I get to explore that longing through fiction rather than through a midlife crisis.”

A deeply researched book, The House Is on Fire is Richmond-based author Rachel Beanland’s gorgeous new historical novel, constructed out of the archives and her own narrative license. Set in Richmond, Virginia, in 1811, the book traces four characters and their communities as they struggle in the aftermath of the historic fire that destroyed the Richmond Theater and resulted in the deaths of more than 70 people, including the governor. At the time, it was the largest disaster that had occurred in the United States, drawing national attention for the significant loss of life and far-reaching impact.   

“I learned about the Richmond Theater fire on the very first day I arrived in Richmond, way back in 2007,” Beanland says. “I had flown in for a job interview and spent an afternoon driving around town with a realtor. As we were passing Monumental Church, the realtor pointed and said, ‘There used to be a theater there.’ He relayed the basic facts of the fire, and I remember being immediately taken with the story.” 

But it wasn’t until 2020 when Beanland decided to write about it. “I had been in the early stages of writing another novel, which was going to require a lot of travel to get right, and when all air travel ceased, I started to get nervous,” she says. “I began thinking about novels I could set in my own backyard.”

This interest ultimately led Beanland to conduct research around the fire—through the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, among other sources—which she incorporates throughout the story in large and small ways, carefully balanced with intimately human stories of tragedy and resilience. 

“People’s race, gender, and class had much to do with whether they lived or died that night,” she says. “So, as I thought about how I’d structure the novel, I knew I wanted to write characters whose stories encompassed these different points of view.” 

The characters whose lives and struggles the author braids together are also drawn from and inspired by recorded history. Beanland says she decided to follow a 14-year-old stagehand, who played a role in setting the fire; a middle-aged widow of means, who is in the expensive (and hard-to-escape) box seats; a young, enslaved maid, who is sitting in the gallery, against her will; and a middle-aged, enslaved blacksmith, who runs to the building to help. ”For me, it is both a challenge and a treat to weave what I really did know about them into the larger, fictional narrative.”

In addition to these protagonists, the novel features a strong supporting cast of characters who are richly embodied by the author’s writing, as well as expert scene-setting in historic Richmond and surrounding areas that locals familiar with the area now will find especially interesting. 

Embracing the language of the historical record and exploring the power of the pen, Beanland notes that she “played with syntax [and] … excerpted paragraphs from real inquest reports, newspaper articles, and fliers, so that readers have some sense of what the written word really sounded like two centuries ago.” 

The novel interrogates a number of the power structures at work in Richmond at this time, teasing out some of the structural oppressions and horrors faced by enslaved Black men, women, and children, as well as women, generally, who lacked agency and were utterly reliant on husbands and fathers to make legal and medical decisions for them.

“It should be noted that I was also writing this book during the Black Lives Matter protests, and watching them play out in Richmond was not just an emotional experience but an educational one,” says Beanland.  “Here I was, doing research on the lives of enslaved people living in the city in 1811, and at times, it felt like I could draw a straight line between what was happening in the city in the early 19th century and what was happening in the summer of 2020.” 

In the four storylines that intermingle across the book, the author goes to great lengths to empower her main characters—each of whom is oppressed because of their race or gender—by celebrating their values and ethics, in the cases of Gilbert and Jack, or by filling gaps in the historical record with their speculative heroic actions, in the cases of Sally and Cecily. 

Combining the historic record with empathetic characters whose traumas feel painfully contemporary at times, Beanland has crafted a novel that is a fast-paced and enthralling prompt to consider how we act in the face of tragedy. 

 “Life, in general, felt very fragile [in 2020], and I couldn’t help but channel a lot of my fears and anxieties into these characters, who are living through their own terrible ordeal,” she says. “Calamities—of all kinds—have a way of stripping us bare, of showing us what is essential, and of bringing out the very best and the very worst in us.”

Inspired by her own experiences with clinical depression and childhood grief, National Book Award finalist Amber McBride published We Are All So Good at Smiling, her second young adult novel in verse, earlier this year. 

Though heavy at times in its examination of the lasting impacts of trauma—and complete with content warnings for readers who might not be in a place to handle that heaviness—it’s a book that ultimately celebrates the power of friendship and family, as well as the beauty that is possible through community and healing.

The novel’s protagonist, Whimsy, and her friend Faerry are each magical in their own way, grappling with childhood traumas as well as societal stigmas around mental health, heightened by their experiences of white supremacy and racism as Black teens in contemporary America. The authenticity of their experience is vivid; McBride’s verse shifts nimbly between fantastical, fairy tale-inspired imagery, and rigorous realism, probing experiences of trauma, false narratives of self, and the work of trying to erase the past, which itself can feel like an attempt at magic.

In addition to her novels, McBride teaches English at the University of Virginia, and has two books of poetry—an adult poetry collection as well as a young adult poetry anthology that she is co-editing—due to arrive on shelves next year. The author is also completing a new middle-grade novel in verse that will be out later this year. The prolific writer and imaginative storyteller credits her students with helping inspire her work. “Something about writing for young people always makes me braver, and my students at UVA also really inspired me because they were so open about talking about their feelings during the height of the pandemic,” she says.

McBride reflects candidly on her own process. “During the height of COVID, I witnessed so many people struggling with their mental health, which really was the catalyst for me starting We Are All So Good at Smiling,” she says. “I don’t know that I knew I was ready to write the book—at the time I was in the middle of what turned out to be a three-year depressive episode—but it felt like the thing I needed to do. Perhaps I needed to travel through my own haunted garden along with Whimsy and Faerry.” 

Readers of McBride’s acclaimed debut, Me(Moth), will recognize many of the themes explored in We Are All So Good at Smiling. “Hoodoo and magic always show up in my books because it is fundamentally a part of my lived experience,” says McBride. “I am also interested in truth and what that means to different people. Is something true because that is how you remember it? Do we remember aspects of history or reality incorrectly because we can’t handle the truth and what conditions are necessary for us to face the truth? In my books the conditions necessary usually include a … need to feel safe before they can face their truths. I think that is often the case in life.”

Indeed, Hoodoo and magic are strong influences in how Whimsy understands and creates a (tenuous) feeling of safety, drawing on lessons learned from her grandmother and the conjuring skills she shares with her parents. Not to be confused with a religion, McBride describes Hoodoo as “an African American folk magic system that was created when Africans were stolen from their homes, enslaved in America, and told that they could no longer practice their own beliefs. The practice blends herbalism, offerings, and ancestral elevation to bring about good luck and healing.” As seen with Whimsy, Hoodoo is often shared across generations, passed down through families. This is also how McBride began her practice, though she has also continued to build on those foundations, incorporating “tea leaves, tarot, and plants to form connections with [her] ancestors and nature.” 

Drawing inspiration from this work, each chapter in We Are All So Good at Smiling is accompanied by a reading of tea leaves or information about one of the many plants used in Hoodoo practices. “I really wanted to use more herbs and plants in this book because they are such useful allies and protectors,” reflects McBride. “Each plant signals what is coming in the chapter [and] the same for the tea leaves—it all foreshadows.”

Fairy tales also play an integral role in shaping the story, influencing the imagery employed throughout, and supplying characters who play important roles in the Garden of Sorrow that Whimsy conjures as a way of working through her depression and grief. “When it came to writing about depression, I knew folklore and fairy tales had to be included because they all represent a universal truth at the core,” McBride says. 

“I also wanted to show that no one, not even Baba Yaga or Anansi the spider, is immune to depression. It is not something to be embarrassed about,” says McBride. “Mental health [is] a topic that I am extremely passionate about because of my own experiences, but also because of the continued lack of access to resources for those who need help. We don’t have time for taboo and stigma, we need to start talking more openly about depression and I hope this book facilitates some of these conversations.” 

Known best for her short stories and novels, author Ann Beattie recently published More to Say: Essays & Appreciations, a collection of short nonfiction. The winner of numerous awards, Beattie brings her keen insight and sense of language to these curated pieces, all of which were originally published between 1982 and 2022 in a variety of publications, such as The New Yorker, Life, and The New York Times. 

The book’s essays celebrate some of the writers and artists—and their work—who Beattie holds in high esteem, including Andre Dubus, Sally Mann, Scott McDowell, and Alice Munro, among others. Her subjects are revered for their work, though not necessarily contemporary household names, and Beattie’s reflections on their lives and work exude heartfelt love and respect. No stranger to Charlottesville (she taught at UVA for many years), Beattie now lives in Maine with her husband, the painter Lincoln Perry, who is also one of the artists profiled in the new book. In an email interview with C-VILLE, Beattie discusses the collection in advance of her upcoming reading at New Dominion Bookshop on March 11.

C-VILLE: How did your selection process for More to Say compare to that of fiction collections you’ve compiled in the past?

Ann Beattie: “I found this more difficult. When I was compiling The New Yorker Stories that came out in 2010, every story I’d published in the magazine was included, and there was the book. It seemed to make sense to have the stories arranged chronologically, from the beginning of my writing career through what was then my most recent publication there.

“I didn’t feel that organizing [More to Say] chronologically would be helpful to the reader, or that that was the right approach. Also, gathering these pieces together after so many years gave me the opportunity to revise them, while I wouldn’t do that with fiction. 

“With my other individual story collections, I tried to think about how I’d like to read the stories as a reader, not as the writer. I try to assemble story collections to have a trajectory that makes sense to me. I don’t think it’s a problem if people just read around in More to Say. To me, the essays on visual artists also explain how I see, while the essays about other writers rely on my having a visual sense of their stories.”

The essays range in publication from 1982 to 2022, with your attention on artists largely occupying the earlier half of that and your focus on writers occupying the latter. Was there anything that caused you to shift the focus of your nonfiction work in that way? 

“I’ve taught at UVA and other places, but for one stretch of 27 years I was primarily a freelance writer. It was only when I returned to UVA for one semester a year in 2000 (now I’m gone), that I had any opportunity to voice my opinions about literature. One advantage of teaching is that everyone’s read the same thing (supposedly). I’m not part of a book group, but that would also be true of a book group. Otherwise, I can be reading something now that was very popular, say, 20 years ago, so if I want to have a conversation about it, the other person probably doesn’t remember that novel or story in detail. In some of my essays about writers’ work, I wanted to remind people how exciting certain writers were [and] to introduce them to writers I admired. 

“To answer the other part of your question: For whatever reason (actually, for many reasons), certain publications didn’t continue to give me assignments. If I’d relied on writing essays or nonfiction (as opposed to fiction), obviously I’d have to have been more proactive.”

Were there any pieces that you wish you could have included but had to omit for any reason? 

“No, though I also knew how long the book could be. Sometimes I realized that I hadn’t remembered a piece that I added belatedly—the Updike essay, for example. I was looking for something else entirely on my bookshelf in Maine, and saw the publication in which that had been printed. I re-read it, and decided it was better than another essay I’d intended to include. 

“I still wonder how many things I might have totally forgotten. Some of these essays are so old, they were very hard to locate. (I had to order an old Life magazine to get my piece on Grant Wood.) My filing cabinets only hold so much, and quite a few things were written on a typewriter, before I had a computer with a filing system. If I didn’t have the original, I had to try to buy it, if possible.”

Were there any surprises for you as a reader as you reviewed your past work?

“Yes. My overreliance on certain words, such as ‘sensibility.’ It’s such a useful word, but it gets boring if I keep using it. Also, I’ve done many fiction readings, but I’ve rarely had a reason to read my essays aloud. I never had any reason to re-read them after they were published, either, so I tended to forget them (or things about them) more than my stories. … I guess selecting these particular pieces and putting them in this order made me more aware of what caught my eye at certain periods, and what gets my attention now. Of course I’ve become a different observer than I was in my 30s.”