The Monsters of Templeton

"Lauren Groff's debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, is everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more . . . There are monsters, murders, bastards, and ne'er-do-wells almost without number. I was sorry to see this rich and wonderful novel come to an end."--Stephen King"Lauren Groff hits a home run in her first at-bat, with a novel that is intriguingly constructed and compulsively readable."--Denver Post"Groff's multilayered saga both thrills and delights with poignant, breathtaking prose."--Entertainment Weekly (A)"The Monsters of Templeton, a fascinating first novel by Lauren Groff, is a book with joy in its marrow--fabulous."--San Francisco ChronicleIn the wake of a wildly disastrous affair with her married archaeology professor, Willie Upton arrives on the doorstep of her ancestral home in storybook Templeton, New York, looking to hide in the one place to which she swore she'd never come back. As soon as she arrives, though, a prehistoric monster surfaces in Lake Glimmerglass, changing the very fabric of the town. What's more, Willie's hippie-turned-born-again-Baptist mother, Vi, tells her a secret she's been hiding for nearly thirty years: that Willie's father wasn't the random man from a free-love commune that Vi had led her to imagine, but someone else entirely. Someone from this very town. As Willie puts her archaeological skills to work digging for the truth about her lineage, she discovers that the secrets of her family run deep when past and present blur, dark mysteries come to light, and the shocking truth about more than one monster is revealed.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Richly imagined. . . . What Groff illustrates so deeply, and uniquely, is the difficulty of shaking off one's family ties, one's roots."

Entertainment Weekly

"Groff's multilayered saga both thrills and delights with poignant, breathtaking prose. A"

USA Today

"At the heart of Lauren Groff's ambitious debut novel is a simple question. . . . But how that mystery is solved--through three centuries of one family's history overflowing with scandals and secrets--makes it a delightful and challenging novel. . . . The Monsters of Templeton makes readers work, but its rewards are worth it. Groff . . . is a talent to watch and celebrate."

San Francisco Chronicle

"The Monsters of Templeton, a fascinating first novel by Lauren Groff, is a book with joy in its marrow--fabulous."

Miami Herald

"Part mystery and part history. . . . Groff turns her story into a meditation on the nature of change and how evolution--of a place, a family, a person--even if it's diffcult and unsettling, can bring joyous rewards."

People

"Absorbing."

Marie Claire

"Monsters will give you paper cuts from turning pages."

The Christian Science Monitor

"Fabulously inventive . . . follows the trend of recent books such as March, Finn, and Ahab's Wife of extracting characters from classic novels, adding two cups of history, a quart of imagination, and stirring vigorously."

Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Groff's lyrical debut . . . brilliantly incorporates accounts from generations of Templetonians--as well as characters "borrowed" from the works of James Fenimore Cooper. Groff paints a rich picture . . . readers will delight in Willie's sharp wit and Groff's creation of an entire world, complete with a lake monster and illegitimate children."

Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light

"In The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Groff has crafted a multi-layered story that is boldly inventive and surprising, by turns wistful, elegiac, and sweeping."

Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

"Lauren Groff's debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, is everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more. Willie is a funny, sexy, plucky heroine; her Mom--a once-upon-a-time hippie who's gone Baptist but not square--is a hoot; her family history is a funhouse through which Willie must wander in order to find her father. Best of all is Templeton, a town that will remind readers of Ray Bradbury at his most magical. There are monsters, murders, bastards, and ne'er-do-wells almost without number. I was sorry to see this rich and wonderful novel come to an end, and there is no higher success than that."

Denver Post

"Lauren Groff hits a home run in her first at-bat, with a novel that is intriguingly constructed and compulsively readable."

About the Author

Lauren Groff is the author of Arcadia, a New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award; Delicate Edible Birds, a collection of short stories; and Fates and Furies, a National Book Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Tin House, One Story, McSweeney's, and Ploughshares, and in the anthologies 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and three editions of The Best American Short Stories. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and two sons.

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