Product details
Biographical note
Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and two other story collections, including Florida. Winner of The Story Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, she has also been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere, and her books have been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she and her husband own the independent bookstore The Lynx.<b>Powerful and affecting</b>…Captures a five-year-old’s consciousness with rare, almost mystical intensity, this is <b>a vivid, original and generous-hearted book</b>.
Daily Mail
<b>An exquisite tale</b> of idealism and disintegration…<b>Utterly absorbing</b>.
Marie Claire
<b>Richly peopled and ambitious and oh, so lovely</b>, Lauren Groff's <i>Arcadia</i> is <b>one of the most moving and satisfying novels I've read in a long time</b>. It's not possible to write any better without showing off.
<b>The raw beauty of Ms. Groff’s prose is one of the best things about <i>Arcadia </i></b>... <b>stunningly sensual and visceral in describing behaviour straight out of a time capsule…</b> <b>extraordinarily rich imagination</b>, she writes about this life as if she has known it.
New York Times
<b>Groff is a sensuous writer</b>.
Guardian
Intricately wrought ... A powerful paean to the human desire to make the right sort of place to live.
Sunday Telegraph
<b>Smart, beautiful, rooted in an earthy and glorious location ... </b><b>Groff’s beautifully written <i>Arcadia </i>paints a lyrical picture ... You fall in love with <i>Arcadia’s </i>protagonist, Bit, and find yourself transported to a different time, place and lifestyle.</b>
Stylist 5 stars
<i>Arcadia</i>, her second novel, <b>cements all of Groff’s promise, and then some</b>…Deft-structural and convincing authorial control…<b>Wonderful stuff</b>.
Mirror, Book of the Week
With <i>Arcadia</i>, Groff has woven her own tale, <b>in eloquent prose that’s rich in sense of place and depth of feeling</b>
Independent on Sunday
The novel’s greatest strength is its vision of the violent fecundity of nature…<b>Groff excels in writing with a kind of fairy-tale lucidity</b>…The book’s structure and imagery are <b>full of delightful intricacies and cruel ironies</b>.
Times Literary Supplement
'Stunningly sensual and visceral' NEW YORK TIMES
'Smart, beautiful . . . paints a lyrical picture' STYLIST
'Groff is a sensuous writer' GUARDIAN
In the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, on the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House, a few dozen idealists set out to live off the land. Abe and Hannah's only child, Bit, is born into the commune soon after its creation. He grows up there, becoming deeply attached to its way of life and everyone within it, in particular the beautiful but troubled Helle. While the commune rises and falls, Bit, too, ages and changes. But when it's time to find a way to live in the world beyond Arcadia, will he be able to let go of the past to forge a new start?
'An exquisite tale of idealism and disintegration . . . Utterly absorbing' MARIE CLAIRE
'Intricately wrought . . . A powerful pean to the human desire to make the right sort of place live' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'Arcadia is stunningly sensual and visceral in describing behaviour straight out of a time capsule . . . A shimmering evocation of the commune's heyday' NEW YORK TIMES
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FATES AND FURIES
In the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, on the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House, a few dozen idealists set out to live off the land.