The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley

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.

This is a prickly book, a retelling of Beowulf where the character of Beowulf is an anti-hero and Grendel and his mother are sympathetic, if hard to understand. Social norms are satirized, especially consumerism and traditional gender roles. There is a fabulously awful chorus of older women who show up throughout the story to criticize the clothing, entertaining, and decorum decisions of Willa Herot, the more traditional of the two main female characters. There's an element of magic to the story, too, as the dead are present and comment on what's happening. The chapters are told from varying perspectives, so the reader is always trying to understand who is speaking when a new chapter begins.

Not only does the story parallel the story of Beowulf, but other elements of Beowulf are also present. Fragments of Anglo-Saxon style alliterative verse throughout the story, and the writing overall has an mythic, epic quality. Chapters begin like poems or songs, with words like “Listen!” “Behold!” and “Lo!”

I really enjoyed this take on Beowulf. The element of social satire and turning the story upside down made me think about the original in a different way. I want to go back to my Seamus Heaney translation and see how many of the surprising bits of The Mere Wife have a parallel there. I highly recommend.

This was an absolutely beautifully written examination of heroes and monsters - how they're created, what drives them, and how the realities that surround them help to shape them.

This book is often described as a modernization of the Beowulf myth, and while it very obviously is that, it goes far beyond that as well, subverting a lot of the tropes of the original story. It's not necessary to be familiar with the old English poem to appreciate the story here, but knowing that connection adds an intriguing layer of depth to the overall story.

The Mere Wife was sold to me as a combination of Beowulf and [b:Stepford Wives 52350 The Stepford Wives Ira Levin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554371721l/52350.SY75.jpg 1534281], and from that moment I couldn't have been more invested. It is a descriptive, weird, winding book about motherhood, monsters, and war. It's hard to summarize without giving details away, but I'll give a broad overview: Atop and sometimes inside a mountain live a woman and her son, who have survived through everything and on nothing. At the base of the mountain, atop piles of graves and secrets, sits Herot Hall, a perfectly manicured, affluent suburban community full of women somehow in control of everything and nothing.There is much to be gleaned from The Mere Wife. How the trauma of war stays with you no matter how long it's been. How much and how little people can survive. How sometimes women are more easily believed when they're lying or keeping secrets than when they're telling the truth. How those underestimated and overlooked sometimes find their way into the most power without anyone even realizing it. Pick it up for a much different take on gender than [b:The Handmaid's Tale 38447 The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1) Margaret Atwood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578028274l/38447.SY75.jpg 1119185] or [b:The Power 39402272 The Power Naomi Alderman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521910552l/39402272.SY75.jpg 50108451]. For fans of [a:Ira Levin 8050 Ira Levin https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1195044387p2/8050.jpg], [a:Shirley Jackson 13388 Shirley Jackson https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1550251468p2/13388.jpg], [b:Naamah 40917488 Naamah Sarah Blake https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532458699l/40917488.SY75.jpg 63793336], and maybe [b:My Sister, the Serial Killer 38819868 My Sister, the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1523366732l/38819868.SY75.jpg 60394238].