Read it in the Green Room

May We Feed the King

Rebecca Perry

Granta Publications · 2026

  • atmosphereSensuous historical feast
  • atmosphereSéance-like, bewitching
  • paceBrief, layered chapters
  • writingQuietly witty, layered

A poet's slim, elusive debut that braids a present-day museum curator's work with scenes from a medieval king's court, for readers who enjoy puzzle-like fiction about history, appetite and how the past gets told.

Beta invites go out in waitlist order. One devlog email a month, at most — or just read the devlog.

The Green Room

Backstage of May We Feed the King.

Walk in mid-chapter. The people of the book are there, as themselves, knowing what they know so far — and nothing else. Ask them anything. They have read exactly as far as you have.

A moment in the Green Room

May We Feed the King · Rebecca Perry

The narrator

Of May We Feed the King, as they are at your reading place

You

What happens next?

The narrator

“I can only tell you what you have read. Past your page there is nothing yet — not for you, and not for me. Turn it, and come back.”

Their knowledge stops where your reading does.

Illustrative conversation. The app answers from the passages you have read.

Who is in the room

Anyone who has walked on by your page.

The cast

Any character who has appeared so far. Someone who hasn’t walked on yet isn’t in the room. That’s not a limitation; that’s the point.

The narrator

The voice telling you the story, as far as it has told it.

The author

As the book presents them — the mind behind the pages you have read, not a biography.

The book itself

Ask what it is doing to you so far. It answers from its own pages, up to yours.

Before you go in

What critics and prize juries said.

Editorial synthesis

Critics found it an unusually assured debut. The Irish Times praised its taut control and sensory richness while conceding it sometimes favours style over substance. The Big Issue likened the curator's work to a seance and admired how the book refuses to let readers settle on what really happened. Kirkus Reviews singled out its sly humour and compassion, and found it remarkably layered.

Drawn from The Irish Times, The Big Issue, Kirkus Reviews.

Recognition

How it stays unspoiled

Nothing past your page exists.

The companion is assembled from the passages you have read and only those. A character who knows the ending is no one worth talking to, so there is no override — not behind a setting, not behind a confirmation. Your position is the wall.

You are here

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The cast has been waiting for you.

Join the waitlist — beta invites go out in order, and the devlog keeps you honest company until then.