The Monsters of Templeton

I've got to disagree with the recent spate of naysayers here. I loved THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON. I usually read about a book a week, but I took an extra week to savor this one. Lauren Groff baits and hooks her readers with an arresting opener: "The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass." And then she never lets up. Wilhelmina "Sunshine" Upton returns to her hometown of Templeton, NY (a fictionalized Cooperstown) seeking refuge and solace following an unfortunate affair with her Stanford archeology professor. Willie, pregnant, has also tried to run over the professor's wife, the Dean of Students, with a bush plane. Shortly after arriving in Templeton, Willie learns from her born-again mother, Vi, that her father is not an anonymous trick from Vi's commune days in San Francisco, but rather a prominent citizen of Templeton. The only clue to her father's identity that Vi offers Willie is that Willie is descended from Templeton's founder, Marmaduke Temple, both maternally and paternally. Willie taps her research skills to unravel the mystery of her parentage. That's the set-up. Through letters, newspaper articles, journal entries, etc. Willie traces her family tree backwards through seven generations to the founding of Templeton. In addition to present and past citizens of Templeton, the aforementioned monster, a ghost, baseball, and characters borrowed from James Fenimore Cooper's oeuvre also figure here. This is a dense, intricately plotted but never confusing narrative. Clever illustrations, including a constantly revised family tree, help greatly in this regard. There is inevitability to the solution of Willie's parentage that comes from Groff's careful plotting. (There's even a clue in the dust jacket illustration.) The writing is lyrical, highly detailed, and yet accessible. Groff successfully crafts a host of distinctive narrative voices and paints vivid portraits of her town and its people. There are several subplots, most of which work quite well. The one exception would be that involving Willie's best friend, Clarissa, and her struggle with lupus. Even here, Clarissa is a well drawn, engaging character, but her story detracted from, rather than enhanced, the main storyline. Still, all in all, from beginning to end, this first novel is an admirable and bewitching work.

Wow, how do I describe this book? The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff, is a fiction/fantasy/mystery/ghost story unlike anything I've read in quite a long time, and it is close to being brilliant. Set in the fictional town of Templeton, NY (fashioned after Cooperstown), Willie Upton has come home to deal with being pregnant by a professor at Stanford, where she was attending college. Believing herself to be the product of her mother's counter-culture ways in 1970's San Francisco, she is stunned to find out that her father might actually live in Templeton. This is the story of Willie's search for her father, and her wacky genealogical discoveries along the way. Groff even includes "photos" of Willie's ancestors! Some of the other subjects in this book are Alaska, Archaeology, Arson, Baseball, Clergy, Community Life, Dreams, Friendship, Ghosts, Lakes, Libraries, Murder, Museums, Native Americans, Orphans, Prostitutes, Reading, Runners, Sea Monsters, Summer, Swimming, Toys, Trees, Virtues, Wealth, Widows/Widowers, and Writers. Isn't that enough to make you read it? I didn't find any deep meaning to this story, but it was a joy to go along for the ride, with all of its crazy twists and turns. I liked not being able to predict the ending. The Monsters of Templeton is a really entertaining book!

I was drawn to this book because I have been researching my own ancestors over the last few years. Ms Groff uses many voices to relate the story of her family and hometown, all sound authentic. As a woman who never left her own hometown and who's been reading her grandmother's diaries for 2 years, I can understand the author's choice to set her book in her hometown and then peel away the layers. I generally stay away from books written in the first person, but I really liked the young narrator and I was anxious to hear her voice. The other modern female characters: mother and best friend are engaging. Yes, there are elements of the paranormal in the plot but it is the "monsters" among us who we should fear.

It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel, given its excellent execution and the way it showcases the author's considerable literary talents. The plot premise is that our central character, Willie (female), has just returned home to small town New York after a disasterous (and then some) affair with the professor directing her archaeology dig. In short order, she reveals that she believes that she is pregnant, her born-again mother retaliates by saying that Willie's father is not the random nameless hippie that she always believed him to be but, in fact someone in this very town, and a giant monster turns up dead in the lake. And that's just the first pages, mind you. As part of the quest for her father, Willie sets off on a genealogical hunt, dusting off and cross-examining whatever remains of her idiosyncratic ancestors. Groff creates different voices beautifully: we get to hear the voices of the people speak for themselves; we read their letters; we sample their novels; we peek into their journals. We also hear the voices of some of James Fenimore Cooper's characters, plus the voices of some of the residents of Willie's hometown. Groff calls up these voices, and each stands out. I never found myself wondering, 100 pages later, which ancestor made what statement, which would be a problem on might expect in a novel like this. The cast is simply too eclectic to describe (so give the book a try and read them for yourself!). Once again, let me stress that Groff keeps her Dickensian cast of characters straight, whether they live in the past or present. What they have in common is that they're all colorful, enjoyable, flawed people, true to "life" as we know it. Perhaps, though, the kindest, most sensitive of all is the lake monster, who we hear from only later (I won't say when) in the novel. Willie's search into her own past is a fascinating detective story for all of us, and it raises questions about what the past means. Groff will not philosophize at you; rather, she uses her ongoing storylines to compell the reader to think about whether the past is a solid chunk of "history" or many little details, how we know when we know enough, how the past feeds in to who we are, how it imprints who we are, etc etc. Highly recommended.

The Monsters of Templeton is written by a woman who grew up in Cooperstown, NY, in which this novel is set. Willie Upton, descendant of the fictional counterpart of James Fenimore Cooper, comes flying home at the age of 28, rebounding from a disastrous affair with her doctoral advisor in the fear that she is pregnant. She has also tried to murder the wife of her paramour. Once she arrives home in NY, Willie embarks on a series of genealogical quests. There is a real monster in Templeton, who dies the day Willie arrives at her mother's house. But the danger in reading The Monsters of Templeton lies in interpreting things too literally. At heart, this is a coming of age story involving a heroine a bit older than most in the coming of age genre. Willie has had an unorthodox upbringing in a town that, immediately below its surface, is as unorthodox as they come. Its founding, its founder, its history, its long-term inhabitants, and its current persona are all unusual, to say the least. Some have characterized Willie as immature. I view her as a young woman caught between two worlds, two times, who is trying to find her self and her destiny, both within her family history and outside of it. And, by returning to her formerly despised hometown, and by allowing Templeton to be itself, and by utilizing her own formidable education to delve into her own ancestry regardless of what it might reveal, Willie does manage to set herself on the right path. She comes to terms with her past, her present, and, as much as possible, with her future. If that isn't magical, I don't know what is. Congratulations to author Groff for producing a strong piece of literature her first time out.