Starred review from November 26, 2007
At the start of Groff’s lyrical debut, 28-year-old Wilhelmina “Willie” Upton returns to her picturesque hometown of Templeton, N.Y., after a disastrous affair with her graduate school professor during an archeological dig in Alaska. In Templeton, Willie’s shocked to find that her once-bohemian mother, Vi, has found religion. Vi also reveals to Willie that her father wasn’t a nameless hippie from Vi’s commune days, but a man living in Templeton. With only the scantiest of clues from Vi, Willie is determined to untangle the roots of the town’s greatest families and discover her father’s identity. Brilliantly incorporating accounts from generations of Templetonians—as well as characters “borrowed” from the works of James Fenimore Cooper, who named an upstate New York town “Templeton” in The Pioneers
—Groff paints a rich picture of Willie’s current predicaments and those of her ancestors. Readers will delight in Willie’s sharp wit and Groff’s creation of an entire world, complete with a lake monster and illegitimate children.
January 15, 2008
Twenty-eight-year-old Willie Upton has just detonated a promising academic career by her scandalous affair with a married professor. Now pregnant, she slinks home to Templeton, NY, just as an enormous dead monster is pulled from nearby Lake Glimmerglass. There, Willie's mother, a former hippie, admits she has always lied about Willie's paternity and discloses this one clue about her biological father's actual identity: he is a descendant of Judge Marmaduke Temple and currently a prominent member of Templeton. Sound familiar? Pay attention: James Fenimore Cooper is from Cooperstown, NY (as is Groff) and used it as the model for Templeton, NY, setting of "The Pioneers". Yes, Groff has daringly used Cooper's Templeton and its inhabitants as the launching pad for Willie's search for her father. Willie takes her mother's clue and pulls on it, following endless strands to get her answer, all the while tormented with indecision about her own pregnancy. Liberally peppered with old photographs, diary entries, letters, and a family tree constantly in need of revision as Willie eliminates one possibility after another spanning more than two centuries of shocking Templeton history, this is an irresistible adventure. Highly recommended.Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 1, 2007
With short stories included in the current editions of Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and Best New American Voices, and this, her first novel, carrying a splashy blurb from Stephen King, it appears to be Groff's breakout year. And her book is a fantastically fun read, a kind of wild pastiche that is part historical novel and part mystery with a touch of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. Willie Upton returns to her hometown of Templeton, New York, pregnant and ousted from a prestigious archaeology program for carrying on an affair with her married professor. Whats more, her mother, an ex-hippie single parent long considered the town oddball, informs Willie that her father, rumored to be a former commune member, is really a stalwart town citizen. Willie soon sets out on a furious quest as she delves into the town archives in search of more information about her lineage.The expansive, rollickingnarrative eventually grows to encompass diary entries, letters, and guest appearances by Natty Bumppo, the founder of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and a couple of loony relatives.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Associat
March 31, 2008
Groff's tale of a young woman searching for her true identity through old letters, journals and articles is a vivid portrait of the past and present, but Nicole Roberts's delivery is far too stolid and contrived to bring the material to life. As if reading a teleprompter, Roberts sounds more like a news anchor, slightly disconnected from the material and doing her best to make it sound important. At times she races through the story at breakneck pace, at others she reads painfully slow as if reading to a group of uninterested first graders. While her pitch is clear, her tone is almost plastic and fake, making the story so dreary and unimaginative that most listeners will be immediately turned off. Simultaneous release with the Hyperion hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 26, 2007).