Staff Review by K.
Galvin
The Monsters of
Templeton by Lauren Groff (Hyperion,
2008)
Readers may recognize
Templeton as the shadow version of a well-known village in Central New York.
The day native daughter Wilhelmina Upton comes home to Templeton is the day the
monster in its lake dies. When
Willie discovers she is the daughter of a local man, not the product of her
mother’s West Coast “summer of love” as she’d been told, she wants to find out
who he is.
Hunting down diaries,
letters, and newspaper articles, she peels back secrets that reveal not just
her identity, but the life story of a town. In putting them together, she may
find that Templeton has more than one kind of monster.
How life is shaped by the past is a
common theme in fiction, and here Groff uses it well. The first person
narratives are an effective device – each ancestor has a distinct voice and
interesting story. The addition of realistic photos and charts adds to the
authentic feel. The only weakness is that the ancestors seem more vivid and
sympathetic than the protagonist herself. While Willie is intelligent and
witty, she is often immature and unconvincing. However, that’s a small
quibble. The Monsters of Templeton is a substantive yet quick moving read
and is a very promising first novel.