The Weirdness of Everyday Life

What might guarantee “a gustatory climax without the mess and aggravation of sex”? For the first character we encounter in C. I. Matthews’s short story collection, Took You So Long, it’s mushrooms. Specifically, morels, which Kathryn Maxwell seeks out on her farmland, desiring the “anatomical perfection” of Morchella and flavours that “titillated the taste buds.” She pursues the elusive fungus as a balm against her complicated relationships with other humans, including her ex-husband, Stan, and her neighbour and sometime lover, Norman. But Kathryn never gets her sought-after delicacy. Instead, she falls into a sinkhole from which there appears to be no escape.

Scrambling to find purchase on a knot of slippery ferns, her calls of help unheeded, Kathryn uses her entrapment to reflect on her failed marriage as she slowly loses consciousness. Confined to a small space in circumstances beyond her control, punished for her yearning, and staring down a lonely...