Synopses & Reviews
A novel rich in comic menace from the author of The Restraint of BeastsIn a setting Samuel Beckett might have found homey lives a man in a house made of tin. He is content. The tin house is well constructed and located miles from the tin houses of his nearest neighbors. Though he seems to have escaped society, however, society finds him.
One day, a woman arrives and moves in. Soon a neighbor comes to visit, and then another. Soon, moving figures silhouette the horizon. People dismantling their tin houses and setting off to find a master builder with a revolutionary message. The gravitational pull cannot be resisted.
Nor can this novel. Part mystery, part parable, Three to See the King stalks the readers imagination and grows inexorably and irresistibly in the telling.
Magnus Mills is the author of The Restraint of Beasts, which was shortlisted for the Booker and Whitbread Prizes, All Quiet on the Orient Express, and The Scheme for Full Employment. He lives in London.
In a setting Beckett might have imaginedby turns biblical, mythic, and surreallives a man in a house made of tin "in the middle of a vast and deserted plain." He is alone; he is happy. The tin house is well-constructed and located miles from the tin houses of his nearest neighbors.
Our unnamed narrator seems to have escaped society, but society catches up with him when a woman arrives one day and decides not only to move in but to start making choices for him. Then another person, and another, arrives. Soon, moving figures silhouette the horizon, and suddenly these people are dismantling their tin houses and setting off to find a master builder with a revolutionary message. But what is this message, and is it worth hearing and trusting and following?
Mills, whose writing Thomas Pynchon has called "a demented deadpan-comic wonder," offers a work that is part mystery, part parable, and part postmodern fairy tale. Three to See the King stalks the reader's imagination and grows inexorably and irresistibly as it unfolds.
"A fascinating religious allegory is built from the barest and unlikeliest of materials in this enigmatic and quite remarkable third novel. Wonderful, mind bending stuff. Don't miss it."Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"What begins unassumingly as a novella lying somewhere east of Godot and west of Kobe Abe's famous dunes becomes instead a wild splice of Twilight Zone episodes and socialist theory, newsreels from Guyana and clips from Oz."Los Angeles Times Book Review
"[A] surreal, screwy new novel . . . Mills, like Ionesco in Rhinoceros, is exploring the wholly human proclivity to trade away a portion of one's lonesome independence in exchange for company, whether of spouse or congregation."San Francisco Chronicle
"[A] remarkable fable packed with amusing biblical allusions and eccentric characters . . . Mills flaunts his influences (Beckett, Sartre) to delightful effect in this weird, poignant story."Publishers Weekly
Review
"A fascinating religious allegory is built from the barest and unlikeliest of materials in this enigmatic and quite remarkable third novel....There's real genius in the range of symbolic and emotional effects that this contemporary Kafka (or Beckett, as some have noted) wrests from his fiction's simple, economical essentials. Wonderful, mind-bending stuff. Don't miss it." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"[A] remarkable fable packed with amusing biblical allusions and eccentric characters....Mills, who has been a finalist for England's Booker Prize, flaunts his influences (Beckett, Sartre) to delightful effect in this weird, poignant story." Publishers Weekly
Review
"With a landscape right out of Samuel Beckett, Mills' latest offering is another tour de force of the strange....Less happens in this book than one might think possible without diminishing the impact of what may be a parable of our times or a glimpse into an alternate universe." Danise Hoover, Booklist
Synopsis
A novel rich in comic menace from the author of The Restraint of BeastsIn a setting Samuel Beckett might have found homey lives a man in a house made of tin. He is content. The tin house is well constructed and located miles from the tin houses of his nearest neighbors. Though he seems to have escaped society, however, society finds him.
One day, a woman arrives and moves in. Soon a neighbor comes to visit, and then another. Soon, moving figures silhouette the horizon. People dismantling their tin houses and setting off to find a master builder with a revolutionary message. The gravitational pull cannot be resisted.
Nor can this novel. Part mystery, part parable, Three to See the King stalks the readers imagination and grows inexorably and irresistibly in the telling.
Synopsis
Living in a tin shack, on a great plain, with only the wind for company; what could be better? But with Mary Petrie rapidly turning your house into a home, and the charismatic Michael Hawkins enticing your neighbours away, suddenly there are choices to be made. Should you stay? Or join the exodus?
Synopsis
Three to See the King is the tale of a man who lives in a house made of tin, set in a remote corner of the world where the wind howls and the sand blows. It is a bleak landscape but, the man assures us, he is content enough. His cozy tin home shields him from the elements, requires minimal upkeep and, best of all, is located miles from his nearest neighbor. When one day a woman arrives and moves in, his life changes abruptly and irrevocably. Neighbors come calling first one, then another, then a third. Disruption turns to disturbance, disturbance to unrest, unrest to migration. Soon tin-dwelling people everywhere are dismantling their houses and heading off to seek the messiah of a revolutionary construction material, a master-builder who will show them a new way to live. Drawn by forces he cannot understand, much less resist, our hero joins the pilgrimage.
Part mystery, part fable, and a mesmerizing feat of storytelling verve, Three to See the King is Magnus Mills' sparest yet most richly ominous and hilarious book to date. Author of the much-acclaimed, Booker Prize-nominated The Restraint of Beasts, Mills explores the dark comic dimensions lurking beneath the ordinary, and spins tales that grow inexorably and irresistibly in the telling. Here is a novel that shows him at the peak of his powers.
Synopsis
A novel rich in comic menace from the author of "The Restraint of Beasts
In a setting Samuel Beckett might have found homey lives a man in a house made of tin. He is content. The tin house is well constructed and located miles from the tin houses of his nearest neighbors. Though he seems to have escaped society, however, society finds him.
One day, a woman arrives and moves in. Soon a neighbor comes to visit, and then another. Soon, moving figures silhouette the horizon. People dismantling their tin houses and setting off to find a master builder with a revolutionary message. The gravitational pull cannot be resisted.
Nor can this novel. Part mystery, part parable, "Three to See the King stalks the reader's imagination and grows inexorably and irresistibly in the telling.
About the Author
Magnus Mills is the author of The Restraint of Beasts, shortlisted for the Booker and Whitbread Prizes, All Quiet on the Orient Express, and most recently, The Scheme for Full Employment. He lives in London.