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The Monsters of Templeton. Lauren Groff

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As explained at the beginning of this book, Templeton is actually Cooperstown. You know, the place with the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Or rather, it's a "slantwise" version of Cooperstown, with lake monsters, friendly ghosts, and a tangle of ancient family secrets. Lauren Groff's "The Monsters of Templeton" is a cleverly interwoven mystery of old secrets, poetic writing and forgotten scandals, but her heroine is the book's Achilles heel.

Willie Upton is returning to her mother's shabby mansion, pregnant and disgraced after trying to run over her married lover's wife. On the same morning, a gigantic monster is found floating in the nearby lake.

Unsurprisingly, Willie is far more interested in her own problems, especially when her hippie-turned-Baptist mother reveals that Willie was not conceived in a free-love orgy, but with a man she knows right in Templeton. To distract herself from her woes, Willie decides to take a single clue and explore back through her family's history, hoping to find the man who fathered her.

Turns out the Temple family tree has a lot of memorable people -- a savvy slave girl, an ethereal Schizophrenic, a pyromaniac, at least one murderer, a popular novelist, a gentle giant. And as Willie backtracks through her family tree, she finds that the secret of her father's ancestry is intertwined in family scandals long forgotten...

It sounds like a fairly ordinary "family saga" novel, doesn't it? But Groff does infuse something special into the story, including touches of magical realism (an immortal town weirdo, a long-lived lake monster, and a lilac ghost) and a series of family accounts that intertwine over time. Which ones are true, and which are self-serving lies? Well, that's up to the reader.

And Groff spins out this complex story in the decaying small-town paradise of Templeton, through misty colours and vibrant details ("the letters themselves smelled of antique rose-water and age-crisped lace"). Despite its links to the "slantwise" past, a feeling of near-fantastical isolation fills Groff's prose, tempered by the fact that there are so many quirky moments from Clarissa and Vi ("I LIKE the international foods potluck").

The biggest problem with this book is Willie herself -- a whiny, selfish brat whose snobbery, anti-religious bigotry and violent behavior are treated as minor flaws. About two-thirds of the way through, Groff seems to realize that Willie is a pretty nasty piece of work, and tries to soften her into a more likable heroine. This happens without warning or development, and it's too little too late.

Groff's supporting characters are far more likable, especially Willie's vivacious, sickly pal Clarissa, and the two unpredictable ex-classmates who are inexplicably vying for her affections. And Vi is a character deserving her own book -- an ex-hippie earth-mother-type whose free-spirited past is awkwardly fitting with her newfound faith. As the book winds on, we find that it's Vi, not Willie, who is the center of the book.

The only real flaw with "The Monsters of Templeton" is Lauren Groff's lead character. The rest of the book is a dreamlike tapestry of half-real history and magical realism. Definitely worth a read for Groff's way with words.