In The Monsters of Templeton,' Cooperstown run amok

A lively debut novel borrows from James Fenimore Cooper and the Loch Ness monster to create myths of its own.

from the February 12, 2008 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

Early on, Willie calls her mom a "human onion," and the novel also works in layers, peeling away to find the "acrid, tear-inducing core." Despite Glimmey and the occasional character who claims to see ghosts, the real monsters of Templeton are most definitely human. Which is why a spiritus-ex-machina near the end of the novel is such a head-shaker – it's a creaky contrivance Groff didn't need.

What makes "The Monsters of Templeton" particularly satisfying is that Groff has taken the macho backdrop of Fenimore Cooper's work and turned it into the stomping ground for some complicated, vibrant women. Cooper's females, as probably even his most ardent defender would admit, weren't his strong suit. Critic James Russell Lowell actually waxed poetic about his inability to write them: "...the women he draws from one model don't vary,/ All sappy as maples and flat as a prairie."

Prickly, messed-up Willie and her mom couldn't sweeten an Eggo between them. When Willie was a child, they were simultaneous sources of civic pride and shame – thanks to Vivienne's status as a hippie and teenage mom and her late historian father's publication of an unsavory secret about the "great" Marmaduke.

Both women were isolated by the "grand old house and ... simultaneous poverty. As I grew, I would have a pool my country-clubbing grandparents had put in, two in-town acres, a lake to play in all summer long," Willie remembers. "And yet I would have to pick my clothes out of a bin in the basement of the Presbyterian Church and during hard times run into the Great American grocery store to buy our cheese with food stamps."

As Willie uncovers "the many messy centuries of my messy, messy family" (and she's not kidding – Vivienne emerges as the sanest, most selfless Temple in 200 years), the modern world gets kinder and gentler (rather improbably so, in a few cases) as the nastiness of the past is exposed.

The historical puzzle satisfies to the end, but in the present day, Groff tries a little too hard to smooth out Willie's future. (As plenty of adopted children can tell you, finding a biological parent doesn't automatically make the rest of life fall into place.)

Still, as a work of imagination, "The Monsters of Templeton" excels. It will be a while before I look at a lake and not wish there were a benevolent, ungainly Glimmey swimming under the surface.

• Yvonne Zipp regularly reviews fiction for the Monitor.

1 | Page 2