000			01838nam a2200289 a 4500
001			039341
005			20231009193416.0
008			120724s2012 nyu 000 1 eng
010			_a2011009956
020			_a9781401340872
042			_apcc
050	0	0	_aPS3607.R6344 _bA88 2012
082	0	0	_aFIC GRO
100	1		_aGroff, Lauren
245	1	0	_aArcadia _c/ Lauren Groff
250			_a1st ed.
260			_aNew York _b: Voice/Hyperion _c, c2012.
300			_a291 p. _c; 25 cm.
520			_aGroff's dark, lyrical examination of life on a commune follows Bit, aka Little Bit, aka Ridley Sorrel Stone, born in the late '60s in a spot that will become Arcadia, a utopian community his parents help to form. Despite their idealistic goals, the family's attempts at sustainability bring hunger, cold, illness, and injury. Bit's vibrant mother retreats into herself each winter; caring for the community literally breaks his father's back. The small, sensitive child whose purposeful lack of speech is sometimes mistaken for slowness finds comfort in Grimms' fairy tales and is lost in the outside world once Arcadia's increasingly entitled spiritual leader falls from grace and the community crumbles. Split between utopia and its aftermath, the book's second half tracks the ways in which Bit, now an adult (he's 50 when this all ends, in 2018), has been shaped by Arcadia; a career in photography was the perfect choice for a man who "watches life from a good distance." Bit's painful experiences as a husband, father, and son grow more harrowing as humanity becomes increasingly imperiled.
650		0	_aCommunal living _v--Fiction
650		0	_aHippies _v--Fiction
650		0	_aNineteen sixties _v--Fiction
651			_aNew York (N.Y.) _v--Fiction
655			_aDomestic fiction
655		7	_aBildungsroman
942			_cMO
999			_c269782 _d269782