Frankie recommends... BOOKER LONGLISTED | May We Feed The King - Rebecca Perry

Frankie says... Structurally challenging debut fiction from poet-cum-novelist Rebecca Perry, proving that fiction - and particularly historical fiction - is at its most exciting/ thought-provoking when its limits are tested. Investigating historiography, storytelling and the tales we choose to tell in lieu of facts, May We Feed The King it at once frustrating but also magical, sparse in prose but intense in emotion, whimsical but also deeply sad. I will always have time for experimental historical fiction, and this twinned story of curator and King is a shining display of a sharp new talent.

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She is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. But in the lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur. He is a reluctant ruler with no hunger for power, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his older brothers.

But it isn't long before whispers begin to fly around the court. And with the growing belief that the King is not fit for the throne comes the idea that another might rule in his stead. May We Feed the King dances between the lives of a historical subject who risks the future of his kingdom and a woman who turns to the past to hide from her present.

Laced with desire and longing, it is a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King 'Great', and a life meaningful.