The Monsters of Templeton

Lauren Groff

6/21/2008

Willie Upton had been doing extremely well as one of two doctoral students chosen to go on an archeological dig in Alaska. Now, instead, she is returning home to Templeton, New York, to hide out. She had a disastrous affair with her married archeology professor. Now she will probably get kicked out of Stanford just short of completing her Ph.D. She comes home to her mother to figure out her future.

Her mother, Vi, had been a hippy living in San Francisco communes who had to come home when her parents were killed. Now she is a devout Christian, much to Willie's disgust. For the first time, Vi gives Willie a hint to the identity of her father. While Willie is trying to decide the next step in her lift, she now starts researching her famous family. Templeton had been founded by one of her ancestors. Marmaduke Templeton may have been a Quaker, but he had hidden depths. A later ancestor became a famous American New York frontier writer. Willie's grandmother married the man who brought the Baseball Hall of Fame to Templeton, then went crazy after her son was born.

Yes, Willie's ancestors are a picturesque lot. The family tree has more branches than Willie suspected. That tree holds the secret to her father's identity. This research distracts her from her own problems.

Returning home to Templeton means more than researching her family, though. It means leaving her best friend ill in San Francisco. It means reconnecting with some men who had been in high school with her, including the Homecoming King the year she was Homecoming Queen. It means explaining to the Running Buds, a group of men in their 50's who supported her while she was growing up, that she is a failure. It means watching Vi being serious about the minister of her church, a man Willie has a hard time accepting. It also means she has to decide what to do next.

The Monsters of Templeton is a multi-layered story that covers central New York state (in a thinly disguised Cooperstown) over the last couple hundred years and several generations. It weaves in and out of the present, presenting the stories of the generations and the scandals that accompanied them.

The novel starts slowly, even though the first thing that happens is the body of a 50-foot unidentified monster is found in Lake Glimmerglass on the day Willie returns home. It is a new mammal that has never been seen before, so shakes up the scientific community. Willie's sense of self is shattered as she waits for contact from the archeology professor to determine their future, if any.

But by the first third of The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Groff had me caught up in her story telling. We learn Vi's story as well as that of generations of Templetons and Uptons. They twist and twine in each other and are not given in a straight line chronological sequence. The reader gets a feel for the struggling, once strong, rural community. By the time I started reading Charlotte's and Cinnamon's letters to each other I was hooked. The Running Buds, a group of joggers who influenced Willie's life, provide the Greek chorus to round the book out.

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