She shows off in the same way that John Updike shows off in his Rabbit novels, or Carol Shields shows off in The Stone Diaries. My copy of Arcadia bears a blurb from Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo, who says “it’s not possible to write any better without showing off.” But the truth is that Lauren Groff does show off. The book’s episodic structure allows seemingly major moments to be confined to the shadows while everyday details are held up to the light: “the tarps over the rotted roof,” a mouse “pray into its pink hands,” pigeons “heaped on the roofline, buttoning house to sky.” The narrative follows a quiet boy called Bit as he gets swept up in this bold utopian dream, his story coming to life in vignettes that take the reader hopping into the year 2018. It’s the late 1960s, and a group of idealists decide to found a commune on the grounds of a crumbling mansion called Arcadia House. Lauren Groff’s Arcadia is set in the fields and forests of western New York State.
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