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. "So: I loved The Mere Wife and I bet lots of other people will too . . . Everyone should read The Mere Wife . It's a wonderfully unexpected dark/funny/lyrical/angry retelling of Beowulf ; what's not to like?" ― Emily Wilson, translator of The Odyssey "Smart, tough modern flip of Beowulf , told through Grendel's mother." ― Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale "Fan-fucking-tastic . . . this book! Oh, this book! It's brutal and beautiful and unflinching.” ― Justina Ireland, author of Feral Youth "Headley's jabs at suburban smugness are fun . . . [and her] prose can be stark, lacerating, insightful . . . The role reversals Headley devises―and the way she adapts an ancient tale into a 21st-century struggle between haves and have-nots, brown-skinned and white, damaged and intact―are largely effective." ― Michael Upchurch, The New York Times Book Review “The most surprising novel I've read this year. It's a bloody parody of suburban sanctimony and a feminist revision of macho heroism. In this brash appropriation of the Anglo-Saxon epic, Headley swoops from comedy to tragedy, from the drama of brunch to the horrors of war." ― Ron Charles, The Washington Post “Spiky, arresting . . . The novel plays ingeniously with its ancient source.” ― Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal "A sly satire of suburbia, wittily detailed and narratively bold . . . with its roots in ancient legend [ The Mere Wife ] proves especially relevant in this time of heightened fear of the Other." ― Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle "The lives of two protective mothers in American suburbia collide in [this] fascinating contemporary retelling of Beowulf .” ― Entertainment Weekly “Headley (whose own translation [of Beowulf ] comes out next year) brings the story of the hero, the monster, and the monster’s mother into contemporary times with uncommon vigor and depth.” ― Boris Kachka, Vulture "Headley's divergences and additions, descriptions of glittering scenery and bloody battles, keep us entranced as those who once gathered round the fire to hear of heroic deeds and shudder at the monsters among us." ―Kathleen Alcala, The Cascadia Subduction Zone “The world needs this book . . . In Headley’s hands, Beowulf is revealed to be the perfect story to bring forward from the depths of Western history. Headley has turned it over, poked its squishy underbelly, asked it a bunch of questions, and come out with an entirely new version of the tale, exploring new perspectives and revealing truths new and old. It’s also a great, heart-wrenching read . . . If you enjoy battling monsters, I can’t recommend this book enough.” ― Leah Schnelbach , Tor.com “Maria Dahvana Headley’s new novel, The Mere Wife , is much more than a simple recasting of the ancient epic poem Beowulf in the suburbs . . . Headley, who is also working on a new translation of Beowulf , subverts the epic by exploring its good-versus-evil battle from the perspective of women who were largely left on the margins by the ancient bards.” ― Jennifer Kay, The Associated Press “The Mere Wife is a book on par with Lidia Yuknavitch's The Book of Joan : electric, feminist, literary retellings of famous tales, but with dystopian spins. The Mere Wife reimagines Beowulf by setting it in a suburban landscape of intense economic disparity . . . Headley's language is exquisite and imaginative, the contemporary adaptation on-point and thought provoking--essentially, this is how to retell a classic.” ― Elena Nic