Forest Euphoria

Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian grew up in the Hudson Valley and felt most at ease in the swamps and culverts near her house. A child who often seemed too much of one thing and not enough of another, she found acceptance there, among amphibious creatures.

In snakes, snails and above all fungi, she saw her own emerging identities as a queer, neurodivergent person. Those organisms also pointed her toward a career in science. This is a work of non-fiction that combines memoir with natural history, tracing the making of a scientist.

Alongside her own story, Kaishian introduces the queerness found throughout living things. Fungal species commonly have more than two biological sexes, and some have as many as twenty-three thousand. Certain intersex slugs fire calcium carbonate "love darts" at one another during courtship.

Glass eels remain sexually undetermined until the last year of their lives. Scientists once labelled this puzzle "the eel question." Kaishian argues that the unusual, the overlooked and the marginalized in nature hold lessons for everyone. The book moves between personal reflection and surprising biological detail.