"Ambrosia for Book Clubs"-- Lauren Groff's Arcadia

Barbara Hoffert of Library Journal picks Arcadia by Lauren Groff (who visits March 27) as one of the new releases to look out for in March 2012:

"A Sixties commune going to seed, its utopian dream foundering, and a boy born there who must eventually rough it in the real world. That story has been told before, but a quick glance persuades me that Groff has made it wholly hers. Refusing to deck out her narrative in period tie-dye, Groff uses language at once nuanced, pointed, and gorgeous to vivify her setting—a tumble-down mansion in western New York called Arcadia House—and the trials of her protagonist. “They can wound, stories, they can blister”: that’s as true here as it was in Groff’s masterly debut, The Monsters of Templeton. But Groff is no gleeful monster here; dreams do die, but she doesn’t slay them meanly. Ambrosia for books clubs; consider multiples. "

Picture: The Marie Claire Book Club reading Groff's earlier bestseller, The Monsters of Templeton.