50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

Don't Miss

  • Spring Sale: 25 Select Fiction and Nonfiction Books
  • Powell's Staff Top Fives
  • Powell's Author Events
  • Oregon Battle of the Books
  • Audio Books

Visit Our Stores


Kelsey Ford: Celebrate Short Story Month: 7 Recommendations Based on 7 Collections We Love (0 comment)
I love short story collections because of how much they manage to do with so little. They can dilate, expand, shatter, constellate. Within any given collection, you can move from the moon to a diner after midnight to that liminal minute right when you wake up but are still knee-deep in a dream..
Read More»
  • Keith Mosman: Powell's Picks Spotlight: Jacqueline Woodson and Leo Espinosa's 'The World Belonged to Us' (0 comment)
  • Ayun Halliday: The Symbiotic Relationship Between Used Bookstores and Small Potatoes (0 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Mere Wife

by Maria Dahvana Headley
Mere Wife

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780374208431
ISBN10: 0374208433
Condition: Standard
DustJacket: Standard

All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$11.50
List Price:$27.00
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
1Burnside

Staff Pick

On the surface, the two mothers who drive this book are complete opposites. Dana is ex-military, traumatized, and on the run after an ordeal that left her pregnant and with no memory of what came before. She has retreated to what used to be her home, the abandoned railway tunnels that are her legacy after her town was gentrified into oblivion. Willa, on the other hand, lives in Herot Hall, the shiny suburban community where everyone lives the way they're supposed to.  She was raised to be a useful ornament and she has performed admirably: her husband is wealthy, her son is healthy, and their meals are always planned a week in advance (alcohol doesn't count). But cracks are beginning to appear in her supposedly perfect life, and in Dana's hardscrabble existence, and the meeting of their two sons will prove to be a catalyst for a destructive, unstoppable chain of events. Reading this fierce tale of class, power, and feminism, I was acutely aware of the illusory nature of civility, of how quickly a smile can turn into a snarl. It's a story that seems to exist outside of time, concurrently ancient and ultramodern. The Mere Wife is the book I can't stop thinking about, a bloody, feral piece of modern mythology.  Recommended By Lauren P., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Synopsis

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.

A retelling of Beowulf set in the suburbs, Maria Dahvana Headley's The Mere Wife turns the epic on its head, recasting the classic tale of monstrosity and loss from the perspective of those presumed to be on the attack.


What Our Readers Are Saying

Be the first to share your thoughts on this title!




Product Details

ISBN:
9780374208431
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
07/17/2018
Publisher:
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS
Pages:
320
Height:
1.20IN
Width:
5.70IN
Author:
Maria Dahvana Headley

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$11.50
List Price:$27.00
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
1Burnside

More copies of this ISBN

  • Used, Hardcover, $13.95

This title in other editions

  • New, Trade Paperback, $18.00
  • Used, Trade Paperback, Starting from $10.98
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Sitemap
  • © 2022 POWELLS.COM Terms

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##