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The Monsters of Templeton

by Lauren Groff (Goodreads Author)

3.58 · Rating Details · 15,764 Ratings · 2,450 Reviews

On the very morning Willie Upton slinks home to Templeton, New York (after a calamitous affair with her archeology professor), the 50-foot-long body of a monster floats from the depths of the town's lake. This unsettling coincidence sets the stage for this debut novel. With a clue to the mysterious identity of her father in hand, Willie turns her research skills to unearth ...more

Kindle Edition, 394 pages

Published February 5th 2008 by Hachette Book Group (first published 2008)

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(showing 1-30)

filter: 2 stars | sort: default (?) | Rating Details

Sep 12, 2016 Katie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: set-in-the-us

I finally abandoned this with only sixty pages to go. Abandoned it without learning the answer to the central question the book asks – who was my father? Because I realised I just couldn’t care. And because I was unable to distinguish most of the many characters from each other despite spending 400 pages with them so it didn’t matter who the father was.

Family trees are fascinating. I love that programme Who do you think you are? We’d all like to know much more about our ancestors. To discover t I finally abandoned this with only sixty pages to go. Abandoned it without learning the answer to the central question the book asks – who was my father? Because I realised I just couldn’t care. And because I was unable to distinguish most of the many characters from each other despite spending 400 pages with them so it didn’t matter who the father was.

Family trees are fascinating. I love that programme Who do you think you are? We’d all like to know much more about our ancestors. To discover the long succession of complex twists of fate that enabled us to finally get born. To find out who her father is Willie Upton, the narrator, will trace her family history back to the founding fathers of the town she was born in.

The novel begins with a great sentence – “The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the 50 foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass.” However, the only really significant purpose of this monster in the novel is to provide that eye-catching first line. There’s a ghost which is equally dramatic as possibility and pointless as a device. In fact, she throws in everything except the kitchen sink. There’s so much going on in this novel that it began to simply induce a feeling of exhaustion.

This was pure whimsy and over-exuberance from the word go. The premise of the entire novel is whimsical. A mother tells her daughter she does know who her father is despite claiming throughout her life that she didn’t but isn’t going to tell her who it is; she wants her daughter to research the conundrum. What we then get are a series of preposterous documents, testaments, portraits – a kind of dream succession of genealogical artefacts that explain every ancestor in his or her own words. Groff here tries her hand at David Mitchell style ventriloquism and fails miserably. All her characters, no matter what century or class or ethnicity they belong to speak in the same exuberant whimsical voice. They soon begin to blur into each other. Eventually I felt the whimsy employed was in large part to disguise the lack of artistry of this overly exuberant novel. It felt like the novel a precocious twelve year old girl with too much mental energy might write.

I think this was too ambitious for a first novel. It's motored by youthful exuberance rather than mental rigour. I found myself wondering if she wasn't under the spell of Krauss and Foer and David Mitchell before writing this. They were all the rage back then. I got the sense of a young writer imitating these writers in a struggle to find her own voice. And for me neither the quirkiness of Krauss/Foer nor the symphonic ventriloquism of Mitchell suits her. In Arcadia she goes back to basics. Straightforward storytelling without any post modernism pretence and I think this is the form that most suits her gift. For me, she’s not really an innovative writer. At least not yet. Her principle gift is she can write so well.

In conclusion, all I can say is thank heavens Groff gave up fancying herself as a comedian when she wrote her next two novels.
...more

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Apr 26, 2008 Trin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historicalfiction, american-lit

Willie Upton returns in disgrace to her hometown of Templeton, New York (a very thinly disguised Cooperstown) and starts trying to unravel a family mystery that, seeing as Willie is a descendant of Marmaduke Temple, the founder of the town, is intimately intertwined with the history of the entire community.

I really thought I was going to like this book. History and mystery and research! Weird, magical realism touches like the discovery of a monster in the lake! Multiple points of view, including Willie Upton returns in disgrace to her hometown of Templeton, New York (a very thinly disguised Cooperstown) and starts trying to unravel a family mystery that, seeing as Willie is a descendant of Marmaduke Temple, the founder of the town, is intimately intertwined with the history of the entire community.

I really thought I was going to like this book. History and mystery and research! Weird, magical realism touches like the discovery of a monster in the lake! Multiple points of view, including samples of “historical documents”! And yet—I never believed in it: not the community, and not the characters. We’re told Willie is brilliant, and yet she not only goes about her investigation in a frustratingly slow way, she fails at basic math. (Not to mention becomes convinced she’s pregnant and yet NEVER GOES TO A DOCTOR OR TAKES A PREGNANCY TEST.) There are a slew of other ridiculous details the reader is expected to swallow, too: I mean, I will accept a prehistoric sea monster living in upstate New York (Champ is TOTALLY REAL, yo), but I simply cannot believe in a character named Ezekiel Felcher. Yes, FELCHER.

There’s also just something about the narrative that simply…lacks energy. Unlike the similarly-constructed The Rotters’ Club, which practically cracks and sparks off its pages, The Monsters of Templeton just sort of lies there. I felt no zip, no kineticism—no joy. Groff says in the forward that she’s in a sense writing a love letter to her town, but I never really felt that love. I can all-too-easily get caught up in small-town nostalgia—I grew up in one, and the right combination of words or sounds or smells can instantly make me forget all the bad things and remember instead some Ray Bradbury-esque version of the village green, the waterfall over the river, the old mill buildings, the big white church spire. But none of that was here. I got no sense of the layout or the character of the town at all.

Instead, I got Ezekiel Felcher. Yes, FELCHER. Excuse me while I fail to get over that. ...more

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May 26, 2008 Miriam rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: People who enjoy the sordid dysfunctional family dramas

Shelves: unfinished, cover-love

I requested this book from the library loan service because it had a promising title and a cover reminiscent of a couple other recent books that I'd liked. The Sonoma County library system does not give one much by way of useful information such as a summery, cover blurb, genre, etc. As it turned out, this story as far as I read focused on dysfunctional families, unwanted pregnancy, and claustrophobic small towns, three tropes which I almost never enjoy. So back to the library it goes! There was ...more

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Mar 25, 2008 Benjamin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

My first impressions of this book were very mixed. Initially, I enjoyed the narrative, but I found the dialogue very amateur. That is, every time a character spoke, it just sounded somewhat ... I don't know, written? Quickly enough, however, even the narrative seemed relatively ho-hum. It's clear that the writer is trying to sound like a good writer, and sadly the effort is too often apparent, which gives the book a forced feel. Adding to the somewhat immature tone of the book is the main charac ...more

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Jul 12, 2009 Wendy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

If Willie Upton were a real woman, I would kick her ass. I considered drop-kicking this book across the room, but I have too much respect for literature. However, I define "literature" quite loosely in this case.

I had all sorts of issues with this book, but my primary beef is with Willie Upton, a Stanford archeology PhD candidate and the main character. She goes away to Alaska with her professor and a group of Harvard guys to search for the oldest human on the continent. She has an affair with h If Willie Upton were a real woman, I would kick her ass. I considered drop-kicking this book across the room, but I have too much respect for literature. However, I define "literature" quite loosely in this case.

I had all sorts of issues with this book, but my primary beef is with Willie Upton, a Stanford archeology PhD candidate and the main character. She goes away to Alaska with her professor and a group of Harvard guys to search for the oldest human on the continent. She has an affair with her dorky professor and right as they make their discovery, the professor's wife shows up. Willie tries to run her over with an airplane and ends the afternoon by running home to her mother, thinking she is pregnant. Okay, I remember the true story of the NASA astronaut that drove cross country in a diaper, to kill her fling's wife or girlfriend, but still, how realistic is it for an intelligent woman with everything going for her to lose her mind and f-up her life because she is boning the a-hole professor? Come on! Willie is the ONLY woman to go on this excursion, the only one invited EVER and she screws the professor and runs home to her mother, knocked up and crying? What a shameful representation of a weak woman in hysterics. Excuse me while I wipe this bustle off my ass!

Then, to make matters worse, she doesn't take a pregnancy test or see a doctor (remember we are talking about a PhD at Stanford here) and can't decide if she is going to keep her baby or not. I was getting really angry at this part, because I thought our author, Lauren Groff, was about to make a statement about abortion. Given that she had already made her main character into a stereotypical raging hormone, I wasn't liking the statement I suspected she was about to make. However, she wimped out of it altogether and instead gave her pseudocyesis, better known as "false pregnancy." So our Stanford PhD basically made the whole thing up. Uhm sorry Lauren, but next time you write a book call me and I will lend you my DSMIV. Your girl Willie doesn't fit the profile for someone that would happen to. Plus, it made me, as a reader, hate Willie even more.

Of course, this book had more to it than Willie being a complete disgrace to her gender, but a lot of that didn't make sense either. I often wondered why characters were introduced and why the hell they had certain shit going on with them. What does Lupus have to do with anything, for example? I understand a writer uses people she knows and her own experience to write pretty much everything and I suspect that's what happened, but Ms. Lauren needed to drop some baggage on this one.

I give it two stars, because at least the monster was sorta cool... sorta. ...more

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Jun 07, 2016 Kaila rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, needlessly-complex, i-own-this, 2016

Do you like family history? Even better, do you like genealogy? How about if the family is a fake family is a fake town?

I do not. I get it, some people are really into learning about their own family's past. But "genealogy mystery" does not sound like a fun time to me. And guess what? It wasn't.

There were a lot of snide remarks about people's physical appearance and I got really sick of it. Our heroine was depressed for a short period and gained 10 pounds and looked and felt terrible, until she ...more

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Jun 18, 2017 Robin J. rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up

Kind of a mess. I would be interested in a particular story arc, when suddenly the next chapter - populated with people I never heard of - veered completely off course. The monster introduced at the beginning seems to have nothing to do with anything. There's a ghost, too, with about as much significance as the poor monster. I stopped reading at close to 50% because I was just weary of all the meandering.

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Mar 13, 2017 Lacey rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: listen

I didn't enjoy this book; the last half in particular was a struggle. I found the main three female characters pretty annoying. It was very difficult for me to keep the numerous historical characters and flashbacks straight. There were lengthy epistolic segments which I find super tedious.

Overall, I think Lauren Groff is an excellent writer and I LOVED Arcadia, but getting through this one was a chore. What kept me going was the mystery of not only WHO Willie's father was but the unfolding of i ...more

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Mar 26, 2008 Jason rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Lauren Groff whisks us away - quite brilliantly I might add - to Templeton, New York on the heels of a scandalous affair. Wille Upton, the main character, has recently undergone a series of shameful events which ultimately lead to her pilgrimage home. Upon her arrival the reader is swept gracefully into a small, historic town whose attributes and secrets are long and numerous. As the fabric of her family's life unfolds, the true history of her ancestral past is revealed. Through her family's ric Lauren Groff whisks us away - quite brilliantly I might add - to Templeton, New York on the heels of a scandalous affair. Wille Upton, the main character, has recently undergone a series of shameful events which ultimately lead to her pilgrimage home. Upon her arrival the reader is swept gracefully into a small, historic town whose attributes and secrets are long and numerous. As the fabric of her family's life unfolds, the true history of her ancestral past is revealed. Through her family's rich history the story shapes itself, each page glimmering of depth and reality. The flowing prose gently places the reader into both a far-away time, and a drama-filled present. Both seamlessly blend to create a novel worthy of publication and merit. Although this is Groff's first novel, you would be hard-pressed to find evidence of it.

The storytelling is not unlike that of Lost, whose script often moves back and forth between past, present, and future. It's nature is mysterious, sometimes dark in tone. As the plot moves forward, the Templeton family's heritage becomes straightened from its askew placement. Someone once said, "the whole point of writing history, is to cover up the truth", such it is with "The Monsters of Templeton". Lying dormant for years on end, secrets waiting in the both the obvious and obscure, only to be pulled from the earth ages later by Wille Upton. She acts as the unifying force throughout the book, employing her skills as a studying archaeologist in her small hometown. Recovery and redemption are two themes equally prevalent throughout. Characters are viewed on a journey of sorts, culminating with the revelations and surprises scattered like leaves in the wind within the novel. A clear, set plot makes this novel one of the best.

Though the summery touts a lake monster, this book is far removed from Science Fiction genre. (The monster is conveyed as the spirit of the town, being itself a part of the cataclysmic event which marks Wille's homecoming. It's death becomes the landmark event, proclaiming the end of an old age, and the beginning of a new.) Reading more like a faux historical document teeming with mystery, intrigue, and love - both lost and found - this novel is sure to shock and awe. Daily life in Templeton is as unexpected as it is interesting. Groff's characters are both vivid and lovable. A gem of a book, a timeless treasure is what this novel is sure to become. Templeton is a town naught to be forgot. It's story will grip you until the last page is read. Indeed, if you read only one book this month, let it be The Monsters of Templeton. ...more

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Jun 05, 2015 Jane rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, library, mystery, fantasy

An interesting book--original but ultimately forgettable. I decided to read this only because of a disguised Cooperstown where I attend the Opera each summer. The author's paean to her hometown, Cooperstown, New York in the novel very, very thinly disguised as Templeton. The story is told through generations of the Upton and Temple families. Each chapter about one of the ancestors unearths another secret and more leaves on the family tree sprout. I am assuming the monster pulled from Lake Glimme ...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Ben rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The idea here is interesting, but it's ambitious--and Groff is not (yet) a very good writer. The text attempts a high literary style, but is also surprisingly crude, as in this passage from early in the novel: "Her shoulders were slumped, and the zipper in the back of her skirt was open, revealing a swatch of red cotton underwear and a muffin-top of flesh above it. From my position in the kitchen door, my mother looked old. If I weren't already holding the pieces together with both squeezed hand ...more

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Feb 24, 2008 Betsy Tsukada rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I really wanted to like this book... but I ended up feeling like I was trudging through mud to get to the end. In the beginning perhaps I had a glimmer of interest in what happened to the characters, but by the limping end I cared not one bit. I gave it two stars because I did manage to finish it and enjoy a chapter or two.

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Feb 28, 2014 Sheri rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, coming-of-age, male-female-power-sex-attractivenes

Okay, so I realize that what I'm about to say may come off as a bit contradictory, but still I'm gonna have to say it. This book was completely contrived and unbelievable. And, I'm not talking about the monster and the ghost.

I kind of liked the monster and the ghost (well, the aura-like color ghost thing, I wasn't so fond of the possession scene in which Willie finds the note in the horse) overall. I especially liked the passage at the end written from the POV of the monster (although maybe it Okay, so I realize that what I'm about to say may come off as a bit contradictory, but still I'm gonna have to say it. This book was completely contrived and unbelievable. And, I'm not talking about the monster and the ghost.

I kind of liked the monster and the ghost (well, the aura-like color ghost thing, I wasn't so fond of the possession scene in which Willie finds the note in the horse) overall. I especially liked the passage at the end written from the POV of the monster (although maybe it was a bit cheesy).

I'm talking about the "real" stuff. The relationship drama between Willie and Peter and Zeke; the lupus-infected Clarissa; Vi's romance with and conversion to Methodism. I thought Vi's quest for Willie to find her father was a pointless waste of time; I thought the hysterical pregnancy unnecessary and ridiculous. Not only that, but little things were very implausible: such as how could Willie (who was not a pilot) figure out how to taxi the bush plane and chase after Dwyer's wife? And speaking of Dwyer, why would Willie be so naive anyway? She knew he was married and has a super-jealous wife (who probably has reason to be so jealous) so why would she think his relationship with her is real?

I enjoyed some of the historical chapters, but I wasn't sure how to take them. Some of them were in the characters' own words as historical documents that Willie uncovers (this makes sense to me). Others, however, were just glimpses inside their heads. How is this possible (especially from those who were illiterate and/or did not leave any documents behind)? It felt kind of like cheating for the reader to have access to this historical "evidence" that Willie (and her Grandpa and Hazel) did not have.

And just to be snotty, I did figure out that Sol was her dad on pg 146. I noted it there as a "give me a break". It had to be him because that is the "happy ending" which doesn't rock any boats.

Overall it was a page turner. It was compelling and easy to read, but not profound or literary in any way and ultimately rather disappointing. ...more

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Jun 25, 2016 Waitalie Nat rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-books

[…] the more frightening the future is, the more complicated it seems to be, the more we steady ourselves with the past.

I came to Lauren Groff’s The Monsters of Templeton right after having finished Sarah Perry’s stunning The Essex Serpent and, interestingly enough, I found myself deep into a narrative that was, once again, built around a mysterious marine creature. Leaving Perry’s Essex for Groff’s fictional Templeton, I met yet another community coming together upon the death and discovery of ...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Abby rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Heartsore* and weary, PhD student Willie Upton leaves her archeological dig in the Antarctic to return to her hometown of Templeton, New York, a literary stand-in for Cooperstown, NY, home of the Baseball Museum. When Willie arrives, she finds her hippie mother Vi converted into a Christian, the mysterious monster of the lake dredged up for the whole world to see, and the coolest guy in school sporting a bit of a beer belly. The core of the book is Willie searching for secrets about her ancestor ...more

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Sep 17, 2011 Stephanie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

It wasn't really what I expected. The synopsis is a little misleading, as you think the book is going to talk about the monster they found in the lake of the narrator's hometown.
Not so much- instead it is a book about her discovering her ancestry and who her real father is, in a lighthearted manner.
It was just ok- I didn't like or dislike anyone once I was finished. I remained indifferent, and had absolutely nothing to say or feel once she found out who her father was.
It was rather dull. Also, y ...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Sarah Asp rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Well I feel a bit mean giving this two stars when I'm not going to finish it, but there were just a few too many "f" words in the first third of this book for me to forgive and move on. I pretty much hate reading vulgar language. The most mean spirited and uninteresting kids at my high school used vulgar language to draw attention to themselves and shock when they could get attention no other way and that sticks with me.
I am convinced that the most talented writers can convey with authenticity ...more

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Nov 19, 2015 Laurel rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I went to Cooperstown to the baseball museum as a kid and while I don't remember much about it, the memory is nice. I liked the idea of someone fictionalizing a place many have been to but don't really know much about- with some supernatural twists, although I thought it would be spookier. Liked parts of the book and some of the characters but all in all it was pretty disjointed and there were great stretches of it that just didn't do much for me. I might have given it three stars for effort til ...more

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Sep 23, 2008 Coral Rose rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

So maybe this is me being particularly snotty, but I hate it when an author uses slang words that weren't around or in use at the puported time of their lives...
The slave, Hetty, who dies in 1810, nicknames a young boy who is a fellow household slave "Little Poof" and then when he runs off (with a travelling minister, of course)she congratulates herself that her nickname was accurate. The word poof as an interjection to express disdain didn't show up until the 1820s (in Britain) and the use as a ...more

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Dec 25, 2008 Kate rated it it was ok · review of another edition

So far (half-way through), I am having mixed feelings about this book. I like that is somewhat historical, but I admit I am skimming over some of those "historical" parts. I know that's the hook of this story, but I prefer the present parts.

I like the main character, mainly because I feel her pain of graduate school choices and having to return home to a town where everyone knows you(I am in a similar boat...although for nothing so scandalous). I think I would be more annoyed by her mother if I ...more

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Dec 10, 2008 Laurie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This book bugged me. I only finished it because I was so close to the end. Some parts read really fast and smooth and others were agonizing to get through. I thought the main character Willie was unlikeable. She was so self absorbed and snobby. I didn't like the way she treated other people, namely her best friend who was battling for her life. I wouldn't recommend this book. I kept hoping that the end would make it all worth while. It didn't.

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Sep 20, 2009 Sarah rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: drama

I am glad to finally be done with this book. I was just not interested in the story, the characters, or anything going on. It was slow and seemed to drag on and never seemed to be going anywhere. It had a nice, happy ending but took forever to get there.

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Aug 14, 2012 Holly rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads

Well, I don't know; this was just okay. It reminded me in some ways of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which I didn't really enthuse over, either. Maybe I just have low tolerance for quirk today.

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Feb 02, 2016 Lauren rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: set-in-an-unreal-world

"'Stubborn heart,' I said, 'Long memory. Bad mix.'"

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Jun 23, 2009 Melissa rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: ladies-writin

Not as good as her short stories. I thought that the historical flashbacks would be irritating, but they ended up being the truest voices in the book.

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Sep 08, 2016 Rachel rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This was.... Uhhhh... Different. Willy was especially infuriating for me, and I wanted more backstory/information on the lake monster.

2.5 honestly.

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May 25, 2011 Karen rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Fair to middling. That’s how I rate this book. I guess that gives it 2 1/2 stars on Amazon’s scale of 5. We read it for book club, and it was my second choice. I don’t gripe about reading books that are my second choice as a rule, so this review of the book is not sour grapes. It’s just full of alright already. Yeah, yeah. Alright already. I’m just not sure what this story was for.

Nutshell Review
A PhD student wants to know who her father is, and her mother–who knows–won’t just tell her, which i Fair to middling. That’s how I rate this book. I guess that gives it 2 1/2 stars on Amazon’s scale of 5. We read it for book club, and it was my second choice. I don’t gripe about reading books that are my second choice as a rule, so this review of the book is not sour grapes. It’s just full of alright already. Yeah, yeah. Alright already. I’m just not sure what this story was for.

Nutshell Review
A PhD student wants to know who her father is, and her mother–who knows–won’t just tell her, which is dumb (because why bring it up at all for Jesus’s sake [it's actually for a religious reason she brings it up, not me being clever with some kind of blasphemous, exasperated turn of phrase] if you are still going to play head games with your child?), and at the same time the main character student is debating whether she should have an abortion after an ill-concluded affair with a married college professor. Willie, the student, is a brat and a jerk, and spends a lot of time looking through historical and family documents to get the answer, which she finds only when a ghost shows her the single hidden letter that reveals all. There is also a sea monster of the Loch Ness variety in the book, but it’s dead. If you enjoy reading stories about crabby people reading old documents because key information is being deliberately withheld from them on flimsy pretense and then discovering the answers only through supernatural intervention that only acts in any meaningful way at the precise moment when the crabby people need that exact form of help, then you will like this book.

The most interesting part of the book to me, in retrospect, is the Author’s Foreword. I am not joking. In the foreword, the author explains her personal connection to James Fenimore Cooper, and states her intention for writing the book in this format and her hope for what readers will learn. She talks about using novels (lies) to get at the truth about lives and people and places, and hopes that we will understand better the real town of Cooperston after reading about the fictional town of Templeton, where the action takes place. The author obviously relates specifically to the main character–perhaps not as a grad student or professional archaeologist, but definitely as a person with long family ties to the town and its founder. The book aims to teach us what it is like to live in the present day as people attached to so much history, and how one finds identity in the past as much as one forges identity in the present. The book is full of photographs and family trees, and (fictional) primary source documents, like letters and journal excerpts, and characters from Fenimore Cooper’s literary legacy, as well as other authors who served as inspiration for Groff, and attempts to create a picture of how families are built on recurring themes as well as recurring chromosomes, and how former transgressions and nobilities affect the lives of their descendants. Does the book accomplish it? I don’t think it does.

I’m not sure why. Part of it is the really contrived and basically stupid reason that Willie is having to look through all this material in the first place. Her mother, who is presented as an earnest person and a champion of others, is messing with her head. That’s it. That’s the only reason. The reader (I mean me) gets so hung up on the fact that this goose chase exists only to make a book that you don’t care who the father is, and you don’t care who the ancestors are. Also, all she has to do is read and read and read until she gets to the answer, so there’s not a lot of puzzling to do. It’s just busywork. All busywork. (Sully was another character that behaved in a random and arbitrary way out of the blue in order to advance the plot. It was jarring to learn that he left Clarissa for a goddess with a splinter, especially after the conversation he had with Willie on the telephone. But that was a good excuse to get Clarissa to Templeton!)

Another reason is that the book is an explicit tribute to James Fenimore Cooper, but all the names have been changed, and you have to keep wondering if this is an exact biography with different names or if any creative license has been taken with lore and family history, and it’s a distraction. James Fenimore Cooper is far more interesting than the main character, and when you leave his not-story to come back to the pointless “truth” of Willie’s experience, you are mad. Another reason is that the literary tributes to characters and other authors are too numerous. Turns out that Uncas and Cora have a baby! Turns out that Charlotte Temple is running around New England! Turns out that Scarlett O’Hara isn’t the only young widow stewing under the weight of heavy mourning! Turns out that Feminore Cooper didn’t like Susanna Rowson! Turns out sometimes people related to famous people who have love affairs with slaves try to deny the relationships! I started skipping those interludes that delved into these silly psychological musings about characters, especially The Buds, who suffered from groupthink. The letters between Cinnamon and Charlotte were interesting, and I liked Sarah’s mental breakdown (despite its echoes of Cunningham’s The Hours), and I thought the mother had a rich history I would have liked to learn more of, but overall there just wasn’t enough story. And there was absolutely no reason to have firestarters and ghosts in the book if they didn’t do anything or symbolize anything. The sea monster in the lake was supposed to represent the family and its ugly secrets, I think, and how beautiful it is to discover secrets and how sad it is to lose them, but it was badly used, too. The technical details about the sea monster at the end belonged in a different book. Maybe it was supposed to represent that Willie is ultimately an academic, but it was just strange. If you are going to employ a creature like the sea monster, it should have really been the ostensible center of the story, with Willie’s discoveries and investigations the ostensible B plot. You know, we watch the monster be revealed and exposed but the truth is really about uncovering the human past, that kind of thing. Bookends and a title do not a metaphor make. Also, if the monsters were supposed to be the horrible people in her family, there really weren’t any. Everyone was just trying to get by, with varying degrees of humanity and success.

I also don’t like the phantom pregnancy angle, but not because it was a bad idea. I think resolving the pregnancy storyline in that way could have supported the idea of lineage and inheritance and what it all means (and if it means nothing), but it was sort of dropped in as like some kind of abortion question cop-out. It was a missed opportunity to explore what it means to have descendants, and what we owe to our children versus to ourselves, and if Willie was going to be the end of the line, and the contrast between Sol having children he never knew about and Willie not having a child she thought she was having. I also liked the way she referred to the not-baby as a “lump,” because it made me think of lumps of clay, and how people can be molded but only to the limitations of their material make-up, and stuff like that. And then there was the sea monster with the unborn baby, and the self-fertilization stuff, and the baby that was swimming in the sea without a family, and the meth-head lost daughter who swam to the light, and so many beautiful moments that could have presented so many wonderful truths about families and individuals. But all we get is Willie, Willie, Willie, who got 1500 on her SAT, was homecoming queen, is the only person ever–-apparently-–to leave the town and make something of herself (which is tries to fail at) or to read Fenimore Cooper, and we learn an awful lot of truth about how self-absorbed big fish in little ponds can be.

It all makes me want to reread Possession by A. S. Byatt again, which I remember as a terribly thrilling and romantic book about grad students frantically searching for information about dead authors. I even liked the movie (especially that business with the letter and the little girl at the end). To echo what some reviewer on Amazon said about Monsters, it would probably also make a great movie. I think I would definitely go see that movie. ...more

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Jul 11, 2017 Liz rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Torn because I wanted to like this book, and did in some moments. I love the fake history of Cooperstown, NY presented here under the nom de plume of Templeton via historical letters and diary entries. That some of my favorite moments in the novel were when the main character (Willie Upton, come back to her hometown after a disastrous affair ends) wasn't narrating reveals how uneven the novel was. There were too many voices, too many caricatures, and too many characters whose entry into the stor ...more

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Nov 30, 2016 Charlie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This just wasn't my thing. I picked this book up thinking that I was going to get an ancestral mystery with some paranormal elements thrown in but instead I got a boring story with a main character I didn't care about. Honestly Vi would have made a more fun protagonist. Even Clarissa would have been really interesting to read about with her health struggles. I won't drag on and on here. There were some elegantly written passages which read a bit like poetry that I liked but beyond that it wasn't ...more

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Jun 04, 2017 Michelle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

A garage sale of a book. Monsters and ghosts? Check. Coming of age soul searching? Check. Historical fiction, genealogical mystery, romance? It's all in there. And while there were moments of brilliance, the overall effect was one of a bunch of bric a brac, masquerading as treasure.

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About Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff was born in Cooperstown, N.Y. and grew up one block from the Baseball Hall of Fame. She graduated from Amherst College and has an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in a number of journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Hobart, and Five Points as well as in the anthologies Best Amer ...more

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