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. It's "The Stepford Wives," 9/11 and English class thrown into a lyrical blender, and it's kind of glorious.
For those who forgot the poem immediately after high school, "Beowulf" is the Anglo-Saxon classic about a warrior who saves a kingdom first from the monster Grendel, then Grendel's mother and then a dragon.
Headley, who also is 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.
read Beowulf online @ Project Gutenburg
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