A 5-Star review in entirety for my nonfiction memoir collection:
“Dancing with quahogs” – just one of the reasons to read 100 Wild Mushrooms. The collection of memoirs revisits one of the most influential decades in American history from the viewpoint of a teenage girl in middle-America. Vivid stories come alive with details covering family life in Rhode Island in the midst of a cultural revelation, overseas war, civil rights movement, the space race, and the point in history when television began to influence daily life.
You don’t have to be a child of the 60’s to enjoy this book. Whether you’re 60 or 20, you can ride in the backseat of the family car, fighting with your sister with the absence of seat belts. Short chapters make reading easy with insight, humor, and on-point commentary worthy of a talented wordsmith. Pages include memories of wringer washers, Ed Sullivan, Captain Kangaroo, Saturday morning cartoons, roller skating in the basement, encouraging a suntan instead of discouraging with sun block, the Beach Boys and the Beatles, along with questionable diet choices with Halloween and Easter candy binges. It also chronicles how world events affected people as those events came in our living rooms on the TV screen.
How can I relate to these stories? How about growing up in the 60’s with three older sisters. Those home permanents really did stink.
100 Wild Mushrooms is more than an enjoyable read. It belongs among the best of thousands of history and anthropology books about the era. To truly understand the 1960’s, it is important to know what happened on Main Street as well as Dealey Plaza, Woodstock, the Lorraine Motel, Khe Sanh, and the Sea of Tranquility.
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