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.
Barb takes care of the web orders here at Boffins, and is your contact for book club enquiries. She spends all her spare time curled up on the couch reading and for the last several years has reviewed books on the Afternoon Program on ABC radio Perth.
Within the gated community of Herot Hall life is picture perfect, or at least it is supposed to be. A lot of time and money are invested in keeping up appearances, and even if some residents, such as young mother Willa, feel like they are slowly going mad, those appearances are kept up. On the mountainside just outside Herot lives Dana, an ex-soldier suffering from PTSD, and her son Gren. Just as Willa has taught her son Dylan to avoid outsiders, Dana has tried to instill into Gren a fear and dislike of strangers. When by chance the boys meet one day, the friendship they strike up heralds a series of disastrous and destructive events. The innocent are judged to be monsters, while monstrous acts are carried out by those purporting to be perfect. Whether you read this as a feminist retelling of Beowulf, a critique of prejudice and bigotry, or simply the story of a tragic series of misunderstandings, The Mere Wife is a dark and fiercely intelligent novel.
