“A contemporary satire, satura, or plate of mixed flesh, which ought to be chewed upon mindfully, that is, if one is to avoid indigestion.”

Quintillius Quintillian

King Midas and the Pie, or, The Stew and the Slew and The Murder: A Verytable Hystory of the Mystery of Kyng Midas and Hys Tymes (some kind of fairy story) by Quintillius Quintillian

Experimental horror fiction whose central character King Midas, leads and land and a people ‘towards gold’ via the production of a pie, which in order to be produced leads to the poisoning of the land, air and sea, and the death of many.

The work might be thought of as a kind of metaphysical whodunnit, though the question of who is ultimately responsible for murder/death cannot ultimately be answered without also answering, who constructed the conditions in which murder/death is necessary or even possible? Through the ironic ambiguity of Quintillius Quintillian’s prose and structure, the reader may be unable to come to a final answer, and so forced to conclude that everyone and no one might in some way be considered both guilty and innocent (or even alive and murdered), and it is this paradox which constitutes the mystery at the heart of the novel.

First edition paperback copy: