I have always been distrustful of fungus. It all just seems unnecessarily dangerous. Why eat something that—if it’s the wrong one—can do so much damage? Plus, my younger palate found the chewy texture felt… off. So, despite mushrooms’ popularity as a food source, I do not eat them at all if I can avoid them.
Over the years, when I’ve picked up novels in which the fungus is the enemy, or at least the antagonist, it has definitely helped me feel justified. Jeff Vandermeer’s Area X trilogy, and more recently Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) and What Moves the Dead (T. Kingfisher) are all favorites—and part of a growing genre I have seen referred to cleverly as “Sporror”: horror involving spore-wielding fungi (shoutout to Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, NH, where I first saw the term). This trend is definitely spreading as more and more recent novels incorporate the kingdom of fungi in insidious ways.
So imagine my surprise when my husband tells me there’s a new HBO zombie show that we need to watch, The Last of Us. What happens to cause the apocalypse this time? FUNGUS. Of course it’s fungus. And it turns out, after a long dry spell for good tv shows, this one is fantastic. I love every second of it.
The Last of Us is based on the video game of the same name and the story is familiar enough if you enjoy zombie lore, but the impetus for this particular outbreak changes things in unusual ways, so you never know exactly what to expect. The show involves an incurable outbreak that destroys most of the human population in days, then shows what’s left of humanity 20+ years in the future. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are a perfect duo, and each episode leaves me excited for the week to come. Even when it completely destroys me, as Episode 3 did when it had me sobbing over the beauty of human connection. I also love a video game with a good storyline, and this definitely seems like one worth getting into.
But for now Kristian and I are more than content to wait patiently each week for Sunday to come around with a new episode. It’s fun to have something to talk about with other watchers while we wait for the next episode to air. Ah, the joy of anticipation when you are so used to bingeing everything else these days. It’s a lot like the satisfyingly slow creep of a good gothic novel.
Or the quiet growth of a deadly fungus.
Kari Meutsch and Kristian Preylowski co-own and run the Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock.