About this item
New York Times bestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley presents a modern retelling of the literary classic Beowulf, set in American suburbia as two mothers -- a housewife and a battle-hardened veteran -- fight to protect those they love in The Mere Wife. From the perspective of those who live in Herot Hall, the suburb is a paradise. Picket fences divide buildings -- high and gabled -- and the community is entirely self-sustaining. Each house has its own fireplace, each fireplace is fitted with a container of lighter fluid, and outside -- in lawns and on playgrounds -- wildflowers seed themselves in neat rows. But for those who live surreptitiously along Herot Hall's periphery, the subdivision is a fortress guarded by an intense network of gates, surveillance cameras, and motion-activated lights. For Willa, the wife of Roger Herot (heir of Herot Hall) , life moves at a charmingly slow pace. She flits between mommy groups, playdates, cocktail hour, and dinner parties, always with her son, Dylan, in tow. Meanwhile, in a cave in the mountains just beyond the limits of Herot Hall lives Gren, short for Grendel, as well as his mother, Dana, a former soldier who gave birth as if by chance. Dana didn't want Gren, didn't plan Gren, and doesn't know how she got Gren, but when she returned from war, there he was. When Gren, unaware of the borders erected to keep him at bay, ventures into Herot Hall and runs off with Dylan, Dana's and Willa's worlds collide.
About the Author
MARIA DAHVANA HEADLEY is a #1 New York Times-bestselling author & editor, most recently of the novel THE MERE WIFE (July 17, 2018, MCD/FSG) , MAGONIA (HarperCollins) , one of Publisher's Weekly's Best Books of 2015; AERIE (HarperCollins) ; QUEEN OF KINGS (Dutton) ; and the internationally-bestselling memoir THE YEAR OF YES (Hyperion.) With Kat Howard she is the author of THE END OF THE SENTENCE (Subterranean Press) one of NPR's Best Books of 2014, and with Neil Gaiman, she is editor of the young adult monster anthology UNNATURAL CREATURES (HarperChildrens) benefitting 826DC. Her short stories have been included in many year's best anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Karen Joy Fowler and John Joseph Adams, and have been shortlisted for the Nebula, Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Awards. Her work has been supported by The MacDowell Colony, and Arte Studio Ginestrelle, among other fantastic organizations. She grew up in rural Idaho and now lives in Brooklyn.
