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  • Published: 3 June 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099537250
  • Imprint: Windmill Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $22.99

Arcadia




THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

'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

  • Published: 3 June 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099537250
  • Imprint: Windmill Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff is the author of three New York Times bestselling novels – Fates and Furies (named by Barack Obama as his favourite book of 2015), The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia – as well as the story collection Delicate Edible Birds. She graduated from Amherst College and has an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Groff’s fiction has won the Pushcart Prize and the PEN/O. Henry Award, among others, and has been shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2017, she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her stories have appeared in publications including The New Yorker, the Atlantic, One Story and Ploughshares, and in several of the annual The Best New American Stories anthologies. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and two sons.

Also by Lauren Groff

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Praise for Arcadia

One of our most talented writers, and Arcadia one of the most revelatory, magical and ambitious novels I've read in years.

Kate Walbert, author of the New York Times bestselling novel A Short History of Women

Richly peopled and ambitious and oh, so lovely, Lauren Groff's Arcadia is one of the most moving and satisfying novels I've read in a long time. It's not possible to write any better without showing off.

Richard Russo

Smart, beautiful, rooted in an earthy and glorious location ... Groff’s beautifully written Arcadia paints a lyrical picture ... You fall in love with Arcadia’s protagonist, Bit, and find yourself transported to a different time, place and lifestyle.

Stylist 5 stars

The raw beauty of Ms. Groff’s prose is one of the best things about Arcadia ... stunningly sensual and visceral in describing behaviour straight out of a time capsule… extraordinarily rich imagination, she writes about this life as if she has known it.

New York Times

With Arcadia, Groff has woven her own tale, in eloquent prose that’s rich in sense of place and depth of feeling

Holly Williams, Independent on Sunday

Groff is a sensuous writer.

Guardian

Powerful and affecting…Captures a five-year-old’s consciousness with rare, almost mystical intensity, this is a vivid, original and generous-hearted book.

Daily Mail

An exquisite tale of idealism and disintegration…Utterly absorbing.

Marie Claire

The novel’s greatest strength is its vision of the violent fecundity of nature…Groff excels in writing with a kind of fairy-tale lucidity…The book’s structure and imagery are full of delightful intricacies and cruel ironies.

Times Literary Supplement

Arcadia, her second novel, cements all of Groff’s promise, and then some…Deft-structural and convincing authorial control…Wonderful stuff.

Henry Sutton, Mirror, Book of the Week

Intricately wrought ... A powerful paean to the human desire to make the right sort of place to live.

Sunday Telegraph