You wouldn't know it unless she told you, but this is Lauren Groff's wacky love letter to Cooperstown, NY, where she grew up. If you really want to enjoy this book, it's best to relax and just accept it all in a spirit of playfulness. It's a wild and goofy collage full of secrets and pretend secrets and mostly benign 'monsters' and ghosts.

Willie Upton returns home to Templeton after a doomed relationship goes awry. After she settles in, her mother Vivienne tells her that the story she's always believed about her absent father is a lie. Willie sets out on a month-long genealogical quest to discover who her father is, based on Vivienne's hints. Along the way, Willie uncovers a heap of wild secrets and crazy rumors about the early inhabitants of Templeton. She has to keep revising her family tree to include changelings and scoundrels.

This is an unconventional novel. It jumps around a bit as the various historical figures tell their tales, and it flips in and out of reality. But it's all done with such heart and humor that I didn't mind the wonky style. You even get to see pictures of the 'ancestors' with amusing captions.