The Mere Wife

May 14, 2018
“Everyone might be a monster underneath their skin,” thinks Dana Mills, a character in this clever reimagining of Beowulf as a mordant glimpse of the mores of contemporary suburbia. Dana is a maimed ex-soldier who lives in an abandoned railroad tunnel above her hometown, Herot Hall, with Gren, her son, through whom the author, by being intentionally vague about his appearance, emphasizes the idea that monstrousness is in the eye of the beholder. When Gren befriends Dylan “Dil” Herot (Gren and Dil’s names combine to sound much like Grendel, one of the antagonists in Beowulf), the young son of descendants of the town’s founder with whom he shares a close bond, the stage is set for a dramatic face-off between Dana and local cop Ben Woolf. When Ben is called to investigate Dana and Dil’s unintended disruption of a Christmas party at the Herots’, he interprets it as a home invasion that must be avenged. Headley (Magonia) applies the broad contours of the Beowulf story to her tale but skillfully seeds her novel with reflections on anxieties and neuroses that speak to the concerns of modern parenting. Her narrative leaps between grisly incidents of violence and touching moments of motherly love that turn her tale’s source material inside out and situate it in a recognizable modern landscape where, as Ben accepts, “the world isn’t large enough for monsters and heroes at once.”

Starred review from May 15, 2018
Headley, a writer of juvenile fiction (Aerie, 2016, etc.) and fantasy, steps into the adult world with this spot-on reimagining of a classic of Old English literature.Think "mere" as sea, as in the Old English, and not just as some dismissive term. Think of the world as the author of Beowulf did, where sea caves shelter monsters and great mead halls harbor mighty warriors who melt away when the monsters make their way inland. Headley recasts the geography of a place that's most contemporary, a suburb of cul-de-sacs and playgrounds, meant to be a community but full of people who live their own isolated lives, while up on the bordering mountain of which the brochures boast, strange things are afoot. Willa has her doubts about the planned community of Herot Hall --"I always thought it might be a mistake to leave the back of the houses unfenced," she frets--and for good reason, for within a cave on the mountain live Dana, a PTSD-scarred returned soldier, and her son, Gren, who are definitive outsiders. Unsocialized, wild, brown-skinned Gren has learned from Dana that Herot Hall is a place of monsters that "tear people from limb to limb," but Gren is infatuated with Willa's son, Dylan, who dares play outside and shows no fear. The fraught friendship of the two throws the carefully constructed worlds of Willa, who keeps weekly menus taped to her refrigerator, and Dana, who is never far away from military-grade weapons, into a spin; Herot Hall may be a "toddler empire," but it is now a place of amber alerts and armed patrols, all courtesy of a combat-ready cop named Ben Woolf. Things do not end well in Herot Hall or on the mountain either: "There are sirens," writes Headley with lyrical assuredness, "and then more sirens, like God has come down from heaven and called out for every church to lay tribute."There's not a false note in this retelling, which does the Beowulf poet and his spear-Danes proud.

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Starred review from June 1, 2018
Headley's (Aerie, 2016) fourth novel is a stunner: a darkly electric reinterpretation of Beowulf that upends its Old English framework to comment on the nature of heroes and how we other those different from ourselves. It deftly interweaves a host of contemporary themes, from racial tensions to veterans' reintegration, political corruption, and female power. In modern suburbia, a well-regulated gated community is juxtaposed against the frightening, untamed wildness outside. Following her traumatic captivity while fighting for America overseas, Dana Mills found herself pregnant and is unsure how it happened. Bearing several battle scars, she and her son, Gren, now live in an abandoned railway station inside a mountain. In the nearby valley, Willa Herot, a discontented housewife, resides at Herot Hall with her son, Dylan, and husband, Roger; the trio appears to be the perfect family. When music from Dylan's piano drifts upward, attracting Gren's curiosity, the boys become secret friends, sparking a chain of often-surprising events (the story creatively deviates from the original). Besides Dana, other first-person narrators include a chorus of suburban matriarchs, police hounds on the scent, and the observant mountain itself. A strange tale told with sharp poetic imagery and mythic fervor, Headley's novel prompts examination of how people create or become monsters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2018

This lyrical novel uses the Old English epic Beowulf as its template, but in this rendering, female and matriarchal power move to the fore. Grendel's mom has a name here: Dana Mills, an Iraq war veteran who has survived an attempted beheading and been impregnated by an unknown wartime father. She and her monster of a son live in an abandoned railroad station under a mountain mere, or inland sea, near an Aspen-like community called Herot Hall. Its elite citizens parallel the poem's Danes. There's a chorus of formidable mothers and mothers-in-law, but the tale centers on one powerful woman, Willa Herot, whose son befriends Grendel, drawing him and Dana toward civilization and danger. Dana slays Willa's husband, Roger, and Willa subsequently marries the sexy police chief, Ben Woolf. Those familiar with the long poem can see where this is going. VERDICT As with any mythically or allegorically driven novel, the plot becomes fantastical when grafted onto modern tropes. Nevertheless, Headley's heroic prose and vivid imagery offers thought-provoking correlations between ancient themes and recent historical events. Its emphasis on feminist power gives an old tale renewed significance. [See Prepub Alert, 11/12/17.]--Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2018

In this contemporary retelling of Beowulf, Willa lives at Herot Hall, a gated, self-sustaining suburban community, while battle-scarred vet Dana lives in the nearby mountains with son Gren. Unaware of society's rules, Gren wanders into Herot Hall and in the ensuing confrontation carries off Willa's son. From a New York Timesbest-selling author with Nebula and Shirley Jackson nominations.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.