ARCADIA
by Lauren Groff

Fiction
Hyperion, January 2012
Hardcover, 289 pages

Lauren Groff’s second novel, Arcadia, tells the story of the first child born to Arcadia, a hippie commune in upstate New York. As Bit, so nicknamed for being born the “littlest bit of a hippie ever made,” grows from a tiny baby into a sensitive teenager, the commune grows from a tight-knit group of 50 Free People into a deeply flawed, hierarchical society including teenage runaways and strung-out Trippies. When the commune falls apart when Bit is 14, he and his mother, Hannah, and father, Abe, must adjust to life in the outside world. Continue reading →