Review: "The Mere Wife" by Maria Dahvana Headley

I might be wrong in attributing this idea to him (and if I am I apologize) but one of my favorite quotes about literature and life in general come from Clive Barker when he said we should have “love for our monsters.” We should seek to understand the pathology, or even the plight of some of society’s castoffs and undesirables at the very least, to look past the label and try to see them as something more human than monster. This idea was racing through my head as I came to the end of Maria Dahvana Headley’s brilliant retelling of the Beowulf myth, The Mere Wife. What might seem like a cheap gimmick on the surface becomes something much more in the hands of Headley, using this often told and well-worn tale to play around with a myriad of themes both modern and timeless such as parenthood, rigid social hierarchies, the tendency to forget the past and the questionable nature of the hero myth. Its feet are firmly planted in both its mythological roots and the era in which it is written in, never once feeling like cheap allegory or a sloppy experiment. I will admit it is hard to get used to and I can see some readers not buying wholly into the blending of these two very different ideas, but Headley’s writing is so crisp and beautifully ambiguous, especially in its use of the royal “we” for some chapters that I was easily mesmerized and hooked early on. I will admit, my own familiarity with the Beowulf story is slim, with my experience with the story being limited to a reading of it in the 6^thGrade and watching two movie adaptions starring Christopher Lambert and Antonio Banderas (the latter is a questionable adaption), so I may have missed some references. In this story, Heorot Hall is not a mead hall but a suburban enclave in the shadow of an ancient mountain: a pillar of technology and affluence. The book opens with the supposed murder of Dana Mills on camera while she is in the midst of fighting a war. She comes home pregnant and gives birth to Gren and begins a shabby life in the complex cave system housed in the mountains, Meanwhile, in Heorot Hall, Willa Heorot, married to the son of the couple that started the enclave, is coasting through a boring marriage and raising her son Dylan, or Dilly. Soon, Gren comes down the mountain and falls in love with Dilly, which sets off a brutal chain of events that span years that pulls in Ben Woolf, a police officer and ideal masculine specimen and puts both mothers on a brutal collision course. What impressed me most was how well Headley is able to hide the actions of the book through her writing, giving revelations and shocking events an extra air of discovery. The book is always exciting, hitting all the right beats in fresh ways, leading to a beautiful final few pages that is uplifting and spellbinding. A truly wondrous and thrilling book that makes the old feel new and the new feel magnificent. 

Rating: 5/5