Beowulf for Cretins: A Love Story

Beowulf for Cretins: A Love Story (2018) is a humorous LGBT romance novel by Ann McMan. The story follows Grace Warner, a lapsed Catholic and English professor at a small liberal arts college and aspiring novelist, determined to write the next Great American Novel. When she meets Abbie, a mysterious and gorgeous woman on a cross-country trip, she has a reckless one-night stand—only to find on her return home that the woman is the new president of her college.

Grace is on a cross-country flight to visit her friend Rizzo when Abbie, a mysterious, beautiful woman takes the seat beside her. Grace was recently dumped by her long-term girlfriend for a younger and more attractive woman, so when she meets Abbie again at Rizzo’s party, she decides to have a reckless fling. No contact information is exchanged, and Grace goes back to Vermont with a good memory. Shockingly, on her return to St. Albans College where she teaches freshmen English and is trying to win tenure, she learns that the new president of the college is none other than Dr. Abbie Williams. All of a sudden, Grace’s dreams of getting tenure go up in smoke, especially when Abbie seeks her out.

Meanwhile, Grace is writing a book about a painting called the Ochre, which had been stolen decades prior and never found. The book is about the supposed adventures of the painting as it passed from person to person. She has written and re-written the manuscript multiple times but does not think it is any good; she refuses to finish it or even try to shop it around to agents. She also must contend with her neighbor’s dog, a little beast named Grendel, who barks incessantly. In a twist of fate, the dog’s owners skip town without paying their rent and abandon Grendel who quickly finds a home with Grace.



Most of the book is a quiet exploration of Grace and Abbie’s developing relationship. Even though they know they shouldn’t, Grace and Abbie keep seeing each other. They try to keep their relationship quiet, but eventually, people start finding out. This includes Grace’s best friend, CK, a luminary academic with a sterling record who is currently dating Grace’s brother Dean. Grace even allows Abbie to read her manuscript—although Grace downplays the book’s value, everyone who reads it loves it, including Abbie. They even adopt Grendel together, although Grendel lives with Grace.

The conflict is low-key and devoid of the usual break-up scene that happens in most romance novels. The characters are already together and have no intention of breaking up, even if it could mean losing their own careers. The only romantic hiccup comes one evening early in their relationship when one of their dates is interrupted by the arrival of another woman who is interested in Grace. The interest is unrequited, and Grace and Abbie move on from the incident quickly. Conflict also comes from the threat of Grace being denied tenure because of her relationship to the new college president. It is a worry that hangs over her head for most of the book—she has spent seven years working toward tenure, competing against a colleague who is also up for the position. Whoever loses, loses their job. For Grace, not getting tenure would mean starting over again at a new institution and working up from the bottom.

Near the end of the book, new opportunities start opening for Grace. When her rival colleague tries to blackmail Grace about her relationship with Abbie, promising to tell on them to the dean, Grace takes it in stride. She decides to resign at the end of the semester. Meanwhile, she finds out that CK stole about a hundred pages of her manuscript and sent them on to her agent. When she confronts CK about it, CK tells her that the agent loves the novel and recommended it to the Algonquin publishing house. Algonquin offers Grace a standard contract for the book, with dibs on a second book. Grace is annoyed because she never thought the novel was any good, but resolute, CK pushes her to publish the book. Moreover, the Ochre painting that inspired Grace’s book is rediscovered, making her forthcoming novel especially timely and likely to be even more of a success. She finally sits down to work on the ending of the novel, because the publisher wants to ride the wave of publicity with an early release.



At the dreaded tenure meeting, Grace hands them a resignation letter because she believes they are about to fire her. The tenure board hands the letter back, telling her that the purpose of the meeting was to offer her the position. Turns out, they knew about Grace’s relationship with Abbie the entire time: Abbie had told them about it in the very beginning and offered to recuse herself from anything to do with Grace’s career in order to eliminate a conflict of interest. Stunned, because she didn’t know any of this, Grace accepts the position. At the same time, CK is offered a prestigious position in her own department, but she waits until she hears about Grace’s fate before she makes a decision to take the job—in a display of loyalty, CK has decided that if Grace doesn’t stay at St. Albans, neither will she.

Beowulf for Cretins ends on a high note: Grace gets the girl, tenure, a book contract, and a dog. This novel is an expansion of a short story called, “Falling from Grace,” which was originally published in McMan’s short story collection, Sidecar (2012). Beowulf for Cretins won the Lambda Award for Lesbian Romance (2019).