There's a Monster in the Lake: The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Here's the first sentence of Lauren Groff's debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton:

"The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the 50-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass."

So this is a book about monsters? It is, sort of. But the actual monster fished out of the lake in the novel's first chapter mostly just looms in the background for the rest of the book, giving way instead to monsters of the human variety. The actual monster becomes, by the end of the book, both a symbol of the individuals who populated the town throughout its ugly but compelling history and one of rebirth. It also prepares us for a story that is half-mythic and tinged with magic realism.

When 28 year-old Willie Upton returns to the small town of Templeton where she grew up, she is pregnant by her married archaeology professor and has just tried to run over her archaeology professor's wife with a bush plane. Things are not looking good and Willie has come home to think, to figure out her next move. Willie is sort of famous in Templeton- simultaneously resented and adored because she's last in the line of direct descendents from the town's founder, Marmaduke Temple. She got a lot of unwanted attention from teachers in high school, and classmates thought she was stuck up.

Anyhow, now Willie is a knocked-up mess hiding out in the cozy old house where she grew up with her hippy mother, Vi, who maddeningly half-shares a secret with her daughter. See, Vi had always told Willie that her father could have been one of three men who had been living with her in a commune at the time of Willie's conception. Turns out, Willie's father is actually from Templeton. He's a local, which means that Willie has probably known him her whole life. Vi also tells Willie that her father claims to also be a descendent from Marmaduke Temple, but she leaves it at that. Willie, needing to occupy herself somehow, begins her search for her father by researching her family's (and the town's) history, starting with her closest relatives and working backwards. Note to Lauren Groff: This is an unlikely and awkward way to get your main character researching (we're to believe that by withholding Willie's father's identity, Vi is deliberately setting Willie on a course of self-discovery), but it does the job. Soon Willie's ancestors are stepping forward through letters and stories, and they're authenticated by the occasional illustration and photograph. The high point of the research is surely a packet of handwritten letters, marked "Contents disturbing and painful," written by two long-dead women. The correspondence begins politely, but quickly descends into darkness as their friendship turns to animosity and the corresponding death-toll rises.

Among the most intriguing characters are a slave, an American Indian and his son, a woman who has the ability to burn down buildings with her emotions, and a red-headed and blue-eyed aristocrat who fathered countless illegitimate red-headed and blue-eyed babies.

The book is completely addictive, but it has it's problems: The writing is occasionally too romantic, as is Willie's amused finger-waving at a photograph of her monstrous great-great grandfather. What's more, Templeton could be any one of a zillion towns with gorey histories- is it really necessary that this one have it's own monster, a ghost (yep, there's also a ghost), and eerie, sinister family portraits? It's as though Groff has taken on a bit too much.