THE MUSHROOM MAN

Powell makes a charming debut with this touching comedy that explores childhood fantasies as well as messy adult truths about family relationships. Beth, a free-spirited widow with a teenage son and 11-year-old identical triplet daughters, longs to have her London sister, Charlotte, come to her Welsh farmhouse with her six-year-old daughter, Lily. One summer, the stuffy, prim Charlotte reluctantly agrees, warning Lily not to share towels or cutlery with her wild cousins ("very different people who live very differently from us"). As soon as she leaves home, her husband, Richard, pursues his dalliance with Lily's nanny. Meanwhile, much to Charlotte's consternation, Lily becomes enchanted by her triplet cousins, especially when one of them concocts a magical story about a Mushroom Man who protects fairies from the rain with his special mushroom umbrellas. When Lily disappears in the forest, the grownups panic, Charlotte says, "I told you so" and the children busily devise a plan to find their cousin. Powell contrasts the adults' frightened response (they call on policemen and search dogs) with the children's more whimsical one (they organize an army of their playmates to march into the forest shouting, "We believe in fairies"). Powell neatly juggles many elements here: sibling rivalry, a marriage gone sour, widowhood. Her wry, playful prose ("Charlotte is coming to visit Beth because she has always had a sense of duty, because she wants to display her sense of duty, and because she thinks Beth's children could do with seeing someone with a sense of duty"), assured voice and unerring eye for detail make her one to watch. Agent, Faye Bender. (Feb. 10)