As a born and raised Michigander turned transplant Chicagoan, living and breathing along the Lake Michigan coastline is perhaps the most abundant and valued blessing of my life. The lake is where I go to think, where I go to calm down, where I go to yearn. Similarly, I have been certain since I was a child that there is a lake monster swimming peacefully in its depths. Although there was only a brief period between third and fourth grade where I took this hypothesis seriously enough to embark on my own expedition (evidence collected was inconclusive), I have spent many hours of my adult life staring out at the horizon, secretly hoping for a creature to make itself known to me. The thought of something impossible getting away with it, sneaking under humanity’s meddlesome nose, is incredibly comforting.
Lauren Fernandez’s There’s a Monster in the Lake: The World as a Fantastical Place, beautifully translated from Spanish by Alexis Almeida, is a book-length essay that philosophically examines the ongoing investigation of the Loch Ness Monster while also providing a thorough analysis on the human relationship with the unknown, and a romantic defense for those who believe despite it all.
Second only to Bigfoot (depending on who you ask), the Loch Ness Monster or ‘Nessie’ is the most famous cryptid, mythical creature, or hoax in the world. Fernandez examines each installment of the Nessie story thus far, tactfully considering historical, conspiratorial, political, and pop culture perspectives. She covers everything from the first written record of a ginormous swimming beast by St. Columba in the sixth century, the origins of the modern day Nessie legend beginning in 1933 and the monster hunter boom that succeeded, to the largest surface area search of the loch in fifty years that occurred in August of 2023. Fernandez discusses Nessie as a fabled creature whose reach has impacted imaginations worldwide, Nessie as complicated journalism, Nessie as a pinnacle of tourism and merchandise, and Nessie as a plesiosaurus, an extinct marine reptile that could possibly still eat, swim, and breathe on the same planet we do.
Fernandez’s writing is thoughtfully objective, sensible, and full of compassionate curiosity for a world unexplained. Her intention is not to sway a reader from a non-believer to a believer, or even to share a comprehensive history of a global phenomenon. Instead, Fernandez uses the Loch Ness Monster as a catalyst to question the functionality of our belief systems and how we exist within them, or while being crushed underneath them. The difference between a person who fervently or even passively believes in the unexplained and a person who does not is actually quite significant—more than just a gap in creativity. Those who can write-off the “fantastical” until it can be clarified or justified under one of the systems they abide by probably have not spent a lot of time pondering whether or not that system is indisputable. Assuming that most people operate under this state of strategic indifference is in fact a logical explanation for the current global state of affairs.
Of course, myths, legends, and lore have the power to be incredibly nuanced discussions. Not believing in the Loch Ness Monster does not make you a sheep, but there is something to be said about a population who walk around with an invisible wall between them and the unanswerable questions about existence and consciousness. Fernandez argues that people who embrace not knowing, those who may stare for hours into the black water of a Scottish loch awaiting a sign, exist in a more liberated version of our universe, especially when the available options or reasons for being and purpose are not particularly satisfying. In her words, reality is a construct that is permanently under construction. Right now, if you are paying attention to the world, reality is diabolical. Can you imagine explaining the present circumstances of artificial intelligence to sixth century St. Columba? Fernandez writes:
“Are you someone who lives in a world where (EVERYTHING), including your own existence, is a (MIRACLE), or are you some-one who believes that all this, the entire (UNIVERSE), is here for (YOU)? Oh, it’s very clear what kind of person (THAT PART OF THE WORLD) is. But would you say that (YOU) are a part of it?”
Some 3,500 miles away from Loch Ness is my lake and my monster. The vastness of a great lake can be hard to comprehend and their energy is difficult to convey. They are thousands of years old, hold 90% of North America’s freshwater, and they are finite. The corporate determination for AI products and services is driving a real-time 200% increase in absolutely massive data centers being built along their shores. The environmental apprehension and the vulnerable public interest currently sits in a very gray area between concern and panic. Our planet is full of people with money and no other purpose than to streamline, optimize, and accelerate their prosaic ideas. I will keep hoping for a more imaginative world. It seems like the only logical thing left to do.
NONFICTION
There’s a Monster in the Lake: The World as a Fantastical Place
By Lauren Fernandez
Translated by Alexis Almeida
Graywolf Press
Published on October 6, 2026
