The effective juxtaposition of past and future and Groff’s (Delicate Edible Birds) beautiful prose make this an unforgettable read. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. 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. Former Glee actor Jonathan Groff has transformed into a Duke in a first look at his mysterious new Doctor Who role. Her second novel, Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. 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. Bit’s vibrant mother retreats into herself each winter caring for the community literally breaks his father’s back. Despite their idealistic goals, the family’s attempts at sustainability bring hunger, cold, illness, and injury. Groff’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.
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