Wearing the Lion

Heracles, hero of Greece, dedicates every one of his feats to the goddess Hera. She wants none of it. His face reminds her that he is one more child her husband Zeus fathered out of wedlock, and she dreads each tribute he sends her way.

Hera finally snaps, and the result is a terrible accident: the deaths of Heracles' children. Heracles falls into grief and sets out to find the god responsible. Hera, weighed down by guilt and anxious to keep her reputation intact, tries to steer him away by handing him monster-slaying quests.

The plan goes wrong. Heracles is too traumatized to commit more violence. He looks after the Nemean lion, befriends the Lernaean hydra and listens to the Ceryneian hind. Each task adds another monster to the family he is building for himself.

This is a retelling of the Hercules myth in a humane and humorous register, with Hera as a reluctant presence at the centre of the hero's life. The tone mixes comedy with real grief. Heracles' new family may yet march on Mount Olympos, and Hera has to live with what she did.