Wilhelmina (Willie) Upton has just slunk home in disgrace. Her promising life is on the skids, her graduate career just about ruined, and her beloved town of Templeton isn't faring so well, either. Willie has no sooner arrived in town when the lake monster's body drifts to the surface, a paleontological wonder from the deep, and everything begins to unravel. Vi, Willie's former-hippie-turned-Baptist mom, confesses that Willie's father was not one of the San Francisco free-love hippies with whom Vi'd been living, but was in fact someone from this tiny New York town. Willie distracts herself from her own problems with genealogical research, attempting to tease out her parentage from scanty evidence. Family history, generations of scandal, a long-standing curse, and a touch of magic realism shape this engrossing debut novel, told in several voices through letters, diaries, and other historical ephemera. The novel is not without its weaknesses; the chronology is hard to follow in places, and there is one character whose writings are dated 1935 while her date of death is listed as 1933 (this may be fixed in the final, published copy? maybe?). A curse is uttered early on (chronologically) but is never addressed again; the reader can make inferences but it is not integrated into the story. On balance, an excellent debut, emotionally charged without being melodramatic and sappy, and I look forward to seeing more of Groff's work in the future. 
 (Groff has a short story in 2007's Best American collection, and it's one of the emotionally stand-out pieces, a love story realistic in its sweetness and tragedy.)