This morning I read a recent Sirenia Digest, #196, which contains the beginning of Caitlin R. Kiernan's unfinished novel, The Merewife. It's a nice, eerie story told from the perspective of Grendel's mother, the monster from Beowulf.
In her prolegomenon, Caitlin talks about the influence of John Gardner's Grendel, one of the many works of fiction from the '60s and '70s that takes the perspective of a villain from a classic work of fiction. Caitlin started The Merewife in the mid-90s, before recontextualised villain stories became the institution they are to-day with big budget movies running the gamut from the daring and successful Joker or Frozen to the safely declawed likes of Maleficent and Cruella.
The Merewife is a nice blend of vivid visceral detail and an exploration of the psychology of a creature whose mind blurs distinctions between human and animal. There are also fascinating references to Norse gods and how myths organically arise over time. It would be nice to read the complete novel but it actually works quite well as a piece of short fiction on its own.
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