in The Mere Wife, the familiar beats of the Beowulf story are curated and condensed, rearranged to create something wholly new as the mythic Herot Hall is reimagined in American suburbia. we see a version of Grendel’s mother given a story and name all her own even as she, and the reader, is told, “𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴.” i never really know what to expect when it comes to retellings (why do they always feel like such a gamble?), but this one breathed a peculiar kind of life and magic into a myth that is hard to imagine beyond its original form. and yet, it works.