Lauren Groff’s debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, was highly acclaimed when it was published 4 years ago. Groff’s sophomore effort, Arcadia, is just as full of unusual but intriguing characters in a well-defined world.
Bit Stone lives with his parents, Abe and Hannah, among the Free People in a commune in the woods of upstate New York. Bit is the first child born to the commune and has never been Outside. In the first section of the book Bit is a 5 year old, trying to understand the world around him, including his mother’s depression. Through Bit’s eyes we learn about the other residents of Arcadia – the free thinkers who started the commune, the “acid-whacked” Trippies and their Minders, the Nudists – as well as how things are run in the commune.
The book then jumps ahead to Bit as an adolescent and Arcadia a less-than-ideal community overrun by potheads, runaways and freeloaders looking for a free place to stay, with the ever-present threat of drug-related arrests looming overhead. Bit is still devoted to his parents but also dangerously drawn to Helle, the daughter of Arcadia’s founder, who seeks the attention she doesn’t get from her father in unhealthy ways. As Arcadia falls apart around him, Bit faces the idea that he’ll soon be in the outside world.
The final portion of the book again moves ahead, this time to Bit as a middle-aged adult living in New York City. Decades have passed since Arcadia’s dissolution but Bit still holds the ideals he grew up with. When his mother’s health, along with a global health threat, leads him back to the former Arcadia, he rediscovers the life he left behind.
Groff has a gift for prose and getting inside the heads of her characters. Arcadia is insulated from the world around it but outside influences still creep in. Differences of opinions on Arcadia’s operation and management both contribute to its initial success and consequent downfall. Life in the commune is at times both fascinating and horrifying.
However, I would have liked to have witnessed Bit’s introduction to Outside, rather than jumping so far ahead. The novel also takes a darker turn during the last section, in stark contrast to the more positive feeling of the beginning, and it’s a bit jarring. Also, the lack of punctuation for dialog may turn some readers off.
All of that being said, I did enjoy Arcadia and its look into a world I knew nothing about and would recommend it.