Rebecca Parry’s novel, May We Feed the King, is a meditation on how we create history. In these pages, we follow an unnamed curator who designs scenes to help visitors metaphorically step into the past and lose ourselves in the life of a similarly unnamed king who never wanted to be a monarch. Though the book is rich in details about finding just the right replica of foodstuffs and the deeply un-private life of the king, Parry demands a lot of our imaginations as she shows us how rumor, supposition, and deliberate revision shape what we can really know about the past.
The unnamed curator is seen at the beginning and end of May We Feed the King. They’ve been hired to create scenes from the life of one of the (also unnamed) country’s monarchs at a castle that has become a museum. With the help of an archivist, the curator dives into the little that is known about one of the country’s kings. The curator is exacting, to the point that their employers stress about deadlines. But the curator will not be rushed. They are a perfectionist, a very unorthodox perfectionist.
The bulk of the novel takes us into the murk of the past. We never learn the name of the monarch and only get to know a few members of their court and staff by their roles. Parry is deliberately vague about when this monarch lived and even about their ultimate fate. Although records found by the curator’s archivist can show what the king ate and wore, they can never really tell us who he was. That said, we can build a portrait of a monarch who is very much surprised to become king. He was the third son. It’s only because of the surprising death of his older brothers that he came to the throne. And because he was never prepared to be king, he has no idea what he’s supposed to do. He never had to develop an agenda or goals for the country. He feels terribly conflicted about sending soldiers to war or to put down unrest. And, over time, he grows resentful and frustrated over the loss of his privacy. There are servants everywhere to anticipate his needs. He’s never allowed to be spontaneous or even do the simplest of tasks, like plucking a flower for his queen or select a piece of fruit from a bowl.
When we return to the curator at the end of the book, they use the talk they’re required to give to visitor to question what we can really know about the past. Records can be falsified or destroyed. Records can also leave gaps when they fail to include the voices of the past. It’s frustrating, sometimes, how little we can know. And yet, we can use those small crumbs of knowledge to see what a busy kitchen would’ve looked like or glimpse the documents stacked on a harassed monarch’s desk.
May We Feed the King is the most unusual work of historical fiction I’ve ever read. It’s hard to even call it that, given how much we don’t know about where and when these characters lived. (You might note that I only classified this book as literary fiction.) But it is one of the most thoughtful books about history I’ve come across. It’s important to be reminded that, the further we look in time, the less and less we know. It’s little wonder to me that Parry’s book has been nominated for some prestigious literary awards.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration.
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