The Schuylkill Monster: A Novel of Phoenixville in 1978

DOCUMENTARY FICTION Is the story really true or pure imaginative fantasy? the SCHUYLKILL MONSTER traces the supposed sightings of a female cryptoid kelpielatus who plied up and down the waters of the Schuylkill River in and around the Phoenixville area, munching on prized geese and stealing cows. According to a "reliable" expert, the creature's only quest was to spawn yet another clutch of eggs to hatch in her pursuit to preserve her species. Only Sergeant Vicki Henderson, with her wry and dry sense of humor, knows the real truth. But she is not revealing what she knows to her friend, Kelly Pearce, the ardent, serious-minded reporter of The Evening Phoenix, whose only ambition is to garner her first front page hard core news byline. Was it actually a hoax or the honest truth? The second in her "A Novel of Phoenixville..." series, June J. McInerney, the author of the critically acclaimed 5-star "Forty-Thirty" and "The Prisoner's Portrait: A Novel of Phoenixville during World War II," weaves the story of Skokie and those that espy her in this sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes serious historical novel that only June can creatively write. Are the sightings and incidents a figment of one's imagination? Or an inexplicable phenomenon of nature? Is it all really true? Does Skokie really live in the Schuylkill waters? Only the author knows. But only you can decide.