Wearing the Lion is the second novel by award winning SF/F author John Wiswell. The novel is Wiswell's take on the story of Heracles - better known by his roman name Hercules - told from dual perspectives: the perspective of Heracles himself and the perspective of Hera, queen of the Olympian Gods, who in most stories is Heracles' antagonist who hates him for being born from Zeus' infidelity.
But Wiswell takes the story in a very different way than I've ever seen before. Here, Heracles is an extremely well meaning Himbo (super strong and pretty, but not the brightest) and Hera is a very sympathetic goddess who finds that her anger at his existence is going horribly wrong and finds herself desperate to find someway to undo her mistakes. The story take the established myths of Heracles and reframes and re-adapts them into a story with multiple found family arcs as well as themes of justice, vengeance, forgiveness, and accountability. And it works really really well. Oh and the story retains Wiswell's amazing gift for dialogue, naming, and character beats (some of the reframed Olympic Gods are just....perfect). You'll want to read this one for sure.
More specifics after the jump:
Plot Summary:
When Zeus came back to Mount Olympus and declared that he's made a new "king of the mortals", Hera just knew her disphit husband had fathered yet another illegitimate child. And she fumed about it, especially after her husband exiled her close friend Até (Goddess of Ruin) for messing with Zeus' plan to make that child's twin brother the King of all of he surveys. And so she decides she will destroy that child.
But to her surprise and frustration, that child, Alcides, is devoted to her above all - his Auntie Hera - and even is given the name "Heracles" (Hera's Glory). And he keeps misinterpreting all of her attempts to get him killed as fun challenges. Until in a moment of full on rage she goes on step too far and takes out her rage accidentally on both Heracles' family....and her own.
Now, Heracles is desperate to find the god or goddess who caused his pain....to find out why and to get some form of justice. In doing so, he will be forced to perform some spectacular labors...but will do so in unexpected ways, for Heracles is loathe to cause more harm upon anyone after the pains he himself as suffered. And Hera is desperate to reverse her mistake: to make amends to her own family...and to figure out some way to help heal the person she soon realizes might not be the insult he first appeared. But both Hera and Heracles will soon find themselves running out of time before their inevitable confrontation, which might break them both...
Wearing the Lion has its story told in chapters that alternate between Hera's Point of View and that of Alcides/Heracles, whose chapter title names change depending upon basically what is going on with him in the story. The story essentially takes us from Heracles' birth up through the end of his labors and a little bit beyond, as both Hera and Heracles deal with what's happening at roughly the same time - although time moves a bit faster on Olympus, so there are some kind of amusing time jumps at the beginning. It's a story that begins on a really light note and will make you smile immensely....up until Hera takes an action that drives Heracles to do his most famous tragic act from the ancient myth and causes the death of Heracles' family. And then we wind up with both characters trying to figure out what to do after everything has gone wrong.
And I mean both characters, for Hera isn't here as an antagonist but really as a sympathetic protagonist in a way you usually don't see in most stories dealing with Greek myths. Hera is the goddess of mothers and families, but she herself deals with an extremely disrespectful family situation: Zeus is incredibly unfaithful and often shoves the children of his affairs in Hera's face and not even in a deliberately cruel way: Zeus is just a clueless fool about Hera, his family, and the humans, and constantly stops paying attention to his works within just a short time. And so when he shoves Heracles in Hera's face, Hera can't help but despise Heracles...even if Zeus himself couldn't care less. It's not made any better by Heracles' clueless prayers to her. But Hera is still the goddess of family and genuinely does care about mortals...so when her desperate acts of hatred don't kill Heracles but do kill his family, well it devastates her... And this becomes even more so when the act of doing so causes Hera's closest companions, the goddess of ruin Até and the fury Goddess, to be hurt themselves and unable to be with her. And so we have this character here whose wrongs were done out of a very understandable rage and who finds herself desperate to find some way to make amends: to her own family and to Heracles...but also so desperately scared of having to face Heracles for what she's done.
And then we have Heracles, our adorable himbo. Heracles is probably the most likable Greek Hero you've ever seen: sure he's super strong and able to do miraculous feats, but he attributes all of his success to Hera (like a modern day athlete does to "God") and means it, only wants to do good, and never wants to believe the worst of anyone. And that even means monsters - whether they be Lions, Hydras, or whatever - or even men who come at him with intent to kill him. So he mistakes the snakes Hera puts in his crib as friends she provides for him and refuses to believe that a god could be responsible for actually causing the death of his family. And he loves so much his wife Megara (herself a fun character we don't see enough of) and his children, which makes that betrayal all the more painful. I'm trying not to spoil things here because so much of what happens is so delightful, but along the way in this story Heracles grows up a bit to learn how to deal with the pain with the help of a second found family he forms of the most spectacular form. You'll care so much for this character in the end, such that the final act can be quite a bit painful, but it's all worth it.
I should mention as well that this book does a great job with its other characters as well, not just the two main characters. The found family Heracles builds in the second act is wonderful, with a character named Logi proving a fun highlight, but really the big plus here is Wiswell's take on the Olympic Gods. Other than Zeus - who is the classic philandering asshole who can't keep his focus on things and doesn't understand why others don't respect him - they're all really different takes than what I've seen before. For example, Apollo is an utter asshole super eager to add new things to his godly domains (hence why he's the god of so much) above all else. Moreover, there's Ares, usually the dumb antagonistic god of war, but is instead an utter highlight, as he genuinely acts here not just to cause conflict but in ways he hopes will help his mother Hera ("all veterans love their mothers") and which sometimes are a bit more clever than you'd expect. He grows too throughout the book, and I loved him so much.
The result is a story of not just found family and of performing tasks without violence, but also one of accountability and responsibility. Hera herself declares that by the book's middle point, but even there so much of the journey is her learning to figure out a way to be accountable for her mistakes and to make up for them: at first she's afraid to be seen as the one who committed these horrible acts; then she accepts that she should admit fault but wants to take the easy way out; and finally she learns that the only way to truly be accountable is to try to take action to repair the damages she's caused as much as possible. It's really well done for the most part, although I think Heracles' story arc ends with him changing his mind about Hera a bit too easily. But overall it works out really well and is charming at times, devastating at times, and immensely satisfying and relieving by the end.
Just a terrific book and another tour de force from John Wiswell.
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