Shadow of the Beast

by Maggie Pearson

Published 15 August 2002
Troy is the child of divorced parents, living with his mother - but caught in the war between his parents for custody. His father arranges for them to run away. The car crashes and his father is killed. Troy, surviving, cannot - will not - believe it, blames both himself and his mother, and will have nothing to do with her. Recuperating with family friends who run a small village shop, he experiences hallucinatory images of himself in the Beowulf legend, a story he shared with his father. As Troy's modern-day story - his loss of memory, his estrangement and fear of his own mother - interweaves with the vanquishing of the hell-hag and later the dragon by himself and Beowulf, standing shoulder to shoulder, Troy finally becomes reconciled to the death of his father.