Monsters Of Templeton [Import] [Paperback]

Lauren Groff (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Heinemann; Airport / Ireland / Export e. edition (2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 043401785X
• ISBN-13: 978-0434017850
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (122 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,028,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lauren Groff was born in 1978 in Cooperstown, N.Y. She graduated from Amherst College and has an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her short stories have appeared in a number of journals, including the New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, One Story, and Subtropics, and in the anthologies Best American Short Stories 2007 and Best American Short Stories 2010, Pushcart Prize XXXII, and Best New American Voices 2008. A story will be included in the 2012 edition of PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories. She was awarded the Axton Fellowship in Fiction at the University of Louisville, and has had residencies and fellowships at Yaddo, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and Ragdale.

Lauren's first novel, The Monsters of Templeton, published in February 2008, was a New York Times and Booksense bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers. Her second book, Delicate Edible Birds, is a collection of stories. Her second novel, Arcadia, will be out in March 2012.

She lives in Gainesville, Florida with her husband and two sons. Her website is www.laurengroff.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can come home again, October 27, 2007

By 

Linda Pagliuco "katknit" (CT, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Monsters of Templeton (Hardcover)

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.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Small Town, Big Secrets., April 13, 2008

By 

Brett Benner (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Monsters of Templeton (Hardcover)

I think I was originally expecting something different from a book called, 'The Monsters of Templeton" that was hugely endorsed by the maestro of literary horror Stephen King. And yes in the book's opening passage an enormous sea creature washes up lakeside, and there's some pulsing ghost like entity that lives in the childhood home of our returning protagonist. However, beyond that this is simply a book about a woman discovering the secret of her lineage through the letters and correspondence of her multitude of ancestors, some of whom are monstrous indeed. Three quarters of the way through I found myself caring less about if Willie would figure out the mystery of who her father was, and instead was more smitten with Groff's romance with the town of Templeton which is directly copied from Upstate New York's Coopertown, where the author grew up. It's all small town USA, Stars Hollowesque with a Greek Chorus of joggers who pass the year with their own few chapters to mark their individual lives throughout the seasons. I don't know if one could call the book completely successful if I'm not caring about the main plot of the story, yet at the same time, I did find myself looking Cooperstown up on the internet, and checking out the various Bed and Breakfasts in the area and wondering about a trip.

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Monsters of Templeton, February 26, 2008

By 

S. Griffin (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Monsters of Templeton (Hardcover)

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!