is the King fit to rule? 

Rebecca Perry: May We Feed the King. 2026. Granta Books. 

Something very very new, something quite wonderful. This book - I think that in almost all award nomination lists? - was a surprise to me. I did not read in advance - I have found that the best policy to get most of the reading, not knowing what to "expect" - so I was pleasantly surprised. 

She is a curator, the one who dresses the rooms in museums for the visitors to see. She knows her profession, takes it seriously, goes far to get the story behind the objects, the smells, the visuals. And the reader is lucky, Perry is skilled, too. The text is complex, vivid with smells the feels. Her work, the room she dresses, becomes alive. And then, there is a lengthy part in the book telling about the kings, especially one king who did not want to rule, not wanting to obey the advisors, the usual way to go about things. To kill to conquer, to start wars. 

For a moment I got tangled why so much of this King, but of course, it belonged to the story but to me it took a little bit too much of the life, of the profession, of the workplace, of her sadness, her nowadays. I would have wanted to read more about that. 

But, Perry knows how to write. She has a relationship to words like poets do, but she is no lyrical writer, somewhere up and above with her text but she keeps the plot tight, the prose precise but oh so vivid. 

Liked this a lot and I think it might win some awards, too.