Our Arcadia

by Robin Lippincott

Inspired by their desire to explore the question, "How to Live?" Nora Hartley and Lark Marin buy a house in Truro, on Cape Cod, to create a haven for themselves and their like-minded friends in their quest for a meaningful life. Nora, thirty-three, is a well-educated divorc&eacutee with two young children; Lark, twenty-four, is a disaffected gay man. The story spans from 1928 to 1943 as it follows the colorful cast of characters who make their way into the bohemian True House. Inevitably, the friends' haven is not impermeable, and they are unable to keep harsh, sometimes violent, reality at bay. Presented in short, deft, impressionistic chapters, Our Arcadia is an elegant, thoughtful novel about the intersection of life and art and the importance of friendships from the critically acclaimed author of Mr. Dalloway.

"A captivating novel, peopled with appealing characters and an intriguing theme: experimenting with an alternative lifestyle." (Orlando Sentinel)

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Gay

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Robin’s latest book is BLUE TERRITORY: A MEDITATION ON THE LIFE AND ART OF JOAN MITCHELL. His collaboration with Julia Watts, RUFUS + SYD, a novel for young adults, will be published in spring 2016. Robin is also the author of the novels IN THE MEANTIME, OUR ARCADIA, and MR. DALLOWAY, as well as the short story collection, THE ‘I’ REJECTED. Robin’s fiction has received nominations for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Pushcart Prize, the American Library Association Roundtable Award, the Independent Book Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. For ten years he reviewed mostly art and photography books for "The New York Times Book Review." His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in over thirty journals, including "The Paris Review," "Fence," "Bloom," "American Short Fiction," "Memorious," "The Literary Review," "Provincetown Arts," "The Louisville Review," and "The Bloomsbury Review," and his fiction has been anthologized in M2M: NEW LITERARY FICTION, REBEL YELL, and REBEL YELL 2. He has held many fellowships at Yaddo, as well as a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony. Though born and raised in the south, he has lived in the Boston area for many years. He teaches in the low residency MFA Program at Spalding University.

Reviews

[Erin Horter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please know I have had this app for a while, yet almost never use it and seldom log my reads. That was until I finished this book. I URGE anyone who is reading this to give this book a shot - it has earned its spot as my favorite book. I am obsessed with the "mixed media" writing style; chapters comprise of third person narration, letters, post cards, journal entries, poems, descriptions of art, retellings of the same event from different perspectives, etc. Maybe it's because my first real memories of "experiencing God," as I called it then, were in waterside Connecticut, but I think Cape Cod/Truro was the perfect setting for this story to unfold in. Quiet New England has a certain charm to it, and Robin Lippincott captures it perfectly. But, I also love the inclusion of Manhattan and Boston as urban contrasts. The implication that "how to live" is not achieved from where you live or who you are, but why you live and the fact that you are merely living at all. I could talk about this book forever, but I implore that you read it yourself. Slow down, take in some art the next time you think of it, and let everything you do be for the sake of love. That, I believe, is precisely how to live.

[Delaney Aby Saalman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this review is going to stray from the critical to enter the dangerous territory of the personal, but I think how this story impacted me personally stands as its own testament to the joy of this book, which is why I’ve decided to include my emotional response to it. On this note of the personal, I do think I should probably confess that I feel predisposed to love this book to begin with because Our Arcadia hit me scarily close to home as someone who has been one-half of a Lark-Nora duo and who knows firsthand that there is nothing quite like having such a relationship, and if/when you lose it, you lose half of yourself. These two characters were so very familiar to me on so many levels that I feel preprogrammed to love them and their story.

To start, Our Arcadia is well-written and lovely — the latter of which is a word that has been running through my head the entirety of my time spent reading these pages. It really is just so lovely. In writing, in its characters (Lark makes my heart absolutely melt…), in the overall idea of a place and a family like True House, in its admiration of art and good-living. To call Our Arcadia lovely isn’t meant to disregard the fact that very un-lovely events and themes exist here. But Lippincott’s writing somehow makes even the ugliest of occurrences feel ripe with beauty and purpose and reason; even awful things that seem so senseless ultimately fulfill some greater prophecy for these characters, which I think is lovely on its own. I also positively adore its full title of Our Arcadia: An American Watercolor. I can’t think of any more lovely combination of words than that whole title. (Okay, I’ll stop saying lovely now!)

The writing really is great here, but the method in which the author chose to tackle the storytelling aspect steals the show in this expansive (yet compact) novel. The plot itself is compelling enough on its own, but combined with how exactly the story is presented through a medley of tactics ranging from traditional prose to epistolary chapters to unique moments pertaining to art and history and many other forms of ingenious vignetting, a compulsively readable novel is born. This is one of those can’t-put-it-down books. It invites you in about as wonderfully as warm water and very politely requests that you not leave until your skin is properly pruned. I was never happy when I had to stop reading this book in favor of returning to real life, was always eager to open it back up again, kept thinking of Lark and Nora during any absence from it, and I never really wanted it to end despite knowing that my uncontrollable speed of read applied to it was inevitably steering me towards the final page. It’s one of *those* books. No doubt walking hand-in-hand with the very readable nature of this book is Lippincott’s ability at succinctness without sacrificing much of anything in the process. I genuinely don’t know how he managed to pack so much (so many years, characters, events, and feelings) into a book of this size (my copy is just barely over 300 pages). To me, that alone is a sign of such an intense focus and understanding of the story on the author’s part. There’s also quite a lot of wisdom to be found here. This is a wise book.

On all these technical levels this book is a homerun. Even its design is pleasing to the senses, the story is engrossing, and the writing never falters. But this book was not easy for me to read in an emotional sense. As I already mentioned, the Lark/Nora dynamic was incredibly familiar to me, especially Lark’s devastating storyline and his entire character, so I brought my own baggage to those characters and their eventual outcomes which became painful to read. But more so than just seeing too much of my own life on the page, this book really forced me to reckon with my own character and outlook. Having to analyze your own self is not always an easy experience and in fact probably shouldn’t ever be a breeze to endure if you’re digging deep enough into the muck of your own self, but I think we should each readily accept the challenge of such examinations especially in terms of reading books that make us see things (even if that very thing is our own self) differently. It’s good for the soul and for growth, and that’s how Our Arcadia came to me: as a mirror, and eventually, as a beacon.

This book, though its characters experience immense tragedies and hardships and face their own strifes throughout the plot, is ultimately vibrantly optimistic at heart in spite of it all. A leading theme is choosing to look on the bright side of even the darkest things, which was something my glass-half-empty spirit couldn’t relate to and often became frustrated by before I came to understand the importance of this message. The setting of Our Arcadia is not a utopian world. It’s very much rooted in our own harsh reality, with rape and bigotry and murder and war. Nor is life at True House quite a utopia: there are conflicts and bad days, and again, tragedies. Yet this cast of characters who turn True House into a home remain steadfast in their devotion to one another and the mission they’re actively living out by choosing to cohabitate together in this new way of life. The exact number of people in the household ebbs and flows, but it remains a decent sized grouping of people who genuinely admire and appreciate one another (for the most part, aside from some unfortunate growing pains on the part of a younger character who was very well-written in their youthful defiance). This was there the story challenged me. My little blackened heart simply couldn’t fathom such love and friendship. I was deeply, terribly suspicious of these characters and their relationships. This group of characters was driving me insane because I couldn’t envision such purity among people. I thought they were a bunch of phonies (please excuse the Holden Caulfield in me). I would have gotten along with the whole lot far easier if the story involved them all secretly hating each other, which speaks an astounding amount about the person I’ve been. But through reading this book, I came to feel a deep shame at my own self for ever choosing to hate people because they happened to be exhibiting goodness.

I have the tendency to gravitate towards darker things and places and forms of art. I feel most comfortable there, and after reading Our Arcadia, I’ve begun to understand why that is and why it’s a fault of my own character and evidence of my own wrongdoings and insecurities. This book was at first immensely off-putting to me on a personal level because I just couldn’t understand what was happening within it. The concept of True House seemed to me more fictional and out-of-this-world than even a science fiction novel set on another planet. In my eyes, it had to be total fantasy (hang onto this line for later). So strange to me that nine humans could inhabit a house and all genuinely like each other. I’ve never even seen nine humans simply gathering in a house, let alone living in it together full-time, and each enjoying each other’s companies as they did so. I kept waiting for the cracks to violently tear this little found family apart, and when this great earthquake didn’t start rumbling as I expected it to, I began searching for the tremors anyway. I could not believe that all these people liked (more accurately: loved) one another. The rottenness of my own spirit came out during this book as I tried to get such a phenomenon to make sense in my own miserable heart: surely these characters were spending countless hours whispering behind each others backs and rolling their eyes when others weren’t looking, surely they resented one another’s successes and milestones and became jealous of a perceived closeness between certain pairings of the group, surely they each were desperate for alone time away from each other, etc etc etc. While reading this story, I truly couldn’t conceive of such a notion no matter how well the author was presenting it to me. And that’s when I realized how cynical I’ve become about interpersonal relationships, about friendships and families and community, and how untrusting I am towards people no matter who they are. The story of Lark and Nora and their chosen family forced me to imagine a world where the notion of true friendship is possible, in a place like True House where such love flows freely and is not at all a rarity. People can be good, can join together to increase that goodness, can choose to live life on their own terms instead of succumbing to the darker side of the world in an effort to turn their lives into true living. This was a lesson I sorely needed.

Back to my initial impression of this book being a fantasy: it is, in a sense. But what I realized after completing the book is this: it doesn’t have to be. Our Arcadia could very well become *your* Arcadia, whether on a smaller-scale level in your own personal life, or on a larger-scale if we all banded together to force it into existence before it’s too late. Despite everything tragic that happened in this book (because it really is a rather sad book if you strip away all the goodness and light that flows upon the pages) I found myself feeling hope for humanity for the first time in a long time. Why can’t we all make our own little versions of True House, why can’t we forge honest and meaningful relationships with like-minded people, why can’t we live for the good of the world with clear hearts and minds?

There’s a rather pretty moment in this novel where a character who is deciding whether or not to have a child with their partner describes choosing to do so as “a leap of faith…an expression of confidence in herself, in her relationship with Davis, and in the environment of True House, if not the world…” To me, this is how Our Arcadia manifests: as a leap of faith for humanity and the world we inhabit, as an expression of confidence in its own beautiful heart and intentions. On yet again a more personal note than a critical one: I read a good chunk of this book on a particularly disturbing and bleak Inauguration Day for the U.S., causing such a message of hope and optimism and faith in community to have never seemed more imperative to me. If only our country could be a little bit more like True House, like our own Arcadia, and if only a watercolor depicting our world could be painted in the lovely shade of blues and greens and lilac sprigs and sky and sea and a lighthouse’s beams rather than the awful, dark pool of blood that’s spreading across the canvas as I type this.

Our Arcadia does not shy away from ugly things or attempt to paint them prettier than they are in an effort to candy-coat the world and its people. This story coexists with the good and the bad of people and the world, but what it manages to so successfully do is to not linger on the darkness for too long at a time, instead refocusing on the brighter spots of the world as often as possible, even in the face of immeasurable losses and unfairness. This mirrors the dogma that Nora herself chooses to believe in throughout her hardships. If I were her, I would’ve crawled into bed and never gotten back out again, but instead she harnessed her pain, transformed it into the love that ultimately caused it, and went forth stronger than before because of the transformative powers of it. This book is honest, but it’s a form of honesty that I wasn’t familiar with. I thought that choosing to see the good in bad scenarios was a form of lying to oneself, or maybe even delusion. I don’t think that anymore. To quote the book, Our Arcadia felt to me as someome “simply in love with the world.” At first I was jealous of that feeling, but the more I read, the more I began to understand that the only thing stopping myself from knowing that feeling is my own self. We can each choose to be that person, that person who is just simply in love with the world. At a time when the country feels so at odds, and when we each have our own personal darknesses to manage, these pages felt like a lighthouse’s beacon rotating through a stormy night: a lovely, safe guide that leads to a softer shore.

How to live? I think each of us has grappled with this question, probably ever since humans first came along and took a good look around. Maybe there is no real, definite answer or absolute truth to offer as a response. But after reading Our Arcadia, I have a hunch.

I’m only docking a star (and in reality if this sorry app allowed half-stars, it certainly wouldn’t be a whole star) because at the time of this oversharing review’s writing I’m feeling greedy and ungrateful. I want…more. I could have kept reading about this family for 300 more pages and can’t help but wonder what this story could have become if it had been steered in that direction. But this incessant need for more is a slippery slope that I know all too well as my own Achilles’ heel as a writer is verboseness. There’s such a thing as “too much” as well as “too little” and I think Our Arcadia does a pretty grand job of being the perfect Goldilocks answer of “just right.” How this book is so phenomenally contained is a marvel all its own. I could never accomplish what was done here. This novel is a masterclass in storytelling that I was consistently taking notes from.

Poor Lark. He fills and breaks my heart all at once.

Edit: it’s been days since I wrote this review and I’m back because the more I walked around with this story in my head, the more I couldn’t leave this book at 4 stars just because I wanted more of it. In this day and age when we are consuming so much media at any given time, and in my own personal life where I read a lot and watch quite a lot of movies, it feels rare when something actually sticks with me amongst the great flood of content. So far, this is sticking like the first sure snow of the season.

[Einar Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought Robin Lippincott’s novel Our Arcadia at a used book store in Ottawa because its setting is one of my favorite places: Cape Cod. Specifically, it tales place in Truro. A group of friends share a home there for 15 years starting in 1928. The characters are great; some are predictable but that’s part of what makes this novel enjoyable. The characters are believable as they face growth, love, loss, and risks. Ultimately it’s a story that asks how each character wants to live and whether taking the plunge is worthwhile. Said one character early in the book, “Dying is easy. It’s how most people live their lives, don’t you think? Slowly dying; it’s living, living fully, that’s hard.” This book was a perfect vacation read that still provoked pondering.

[Kergan Edwards-Stout · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read Our Arcadia, by Robin Lippincott, several years ago and it has always stuck with me. A Virginia Woolf aficionado, Mr. Lippincott’s first book was the lovely Mr. Dalloway: A Novella, which — as its title suggests — imagines the life of Mr. after the passing of the more well-known Mrs. While I enjoyed Mr. Dalloway, Our Arcadia found a way into my soul, and every so often I pick it up to read again.

In Our Arcadia, Lippincott looks at the lives of 6 people sharing a house on Cape Cod in 1928. The central characters, Lark Marin and Nora Hartley, are seeking the answer to the question “How to Live?”, which is perhaps why it resonates so deeply with me. I’ve often found myself searching for “home” and for “community”, and the longing of the characters feels entirely real to me, following each as they look for their own individual answer to the larger question.

As the book cover suggests, there is something about Our Arcadia which reminds me of a watercolor. While there are some dramatic moments, the story is not told luridly, but by imparting key moments and details, often in muted hues, which ultimately come together to form the larger picture.

If you’re looking for a light and frothy read, this would not be the novel for you, but if you’re interested in something poetic and nuanced, Our Arcadia has much to offer. I highly recommend it.

For this review, as well as others, check out my blog at:
http://kerganedwards-stout.com/our-ar...

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was recently culling my TBR books (I admit I'm a serious book addict and have quite a few TBR books; you addicts know what I mean) to make room for newer books. Our Arcadia was on my pile to give away but it spoke to me to keep it (again you addicts know what I mean) and I've learned to listen to books. I'm so glad I did. It's an unusual book with very short varied chapters: some are first person, others third person, some are poems or letters between characters and others are traditional narrative. Nora and Lark, a heterosexual woman and a gay man, meet in a museum, admiring the same painting. Their friendship builds like wildfire and they decide to move from Manhattan and buy a large house in Cape Cod. They invite artists and crafts people to come live with them, in essence creating an artistic commune. The novel begins in 1927 and moves through the Great Depression and WW2. The overriding themes of the novel are friendship, intimacy and love whether those things are delightful or painful, usually both. I love the depth of emotions the story reveals and changes that relationships go through if they last long enough.

[Kiwi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am in love with this book. I will certainly revisit a number of times in my life. Day-in-the-life spanning an incredible cast of characters, a great amount of time and many of those life-changing events that could truly occur to anyone. I felt in touch with each of the characters and found it easy to relate with all of them at various points in the story. The character interactions are fantastic. Structurally, the short chapters that range from poetry to letters to stories to thoughts are wonderful. A thoroughly enjoyable read!

[Erika Nerdypants · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, quiet book about a group of eccentric people attempting to live "off the grid", or an alternative life style in the 1920s. Over their 15 years in Truro, Cape Cod, they learn that living true to ones values requires great effort and discipline. While I liked all of the principal characters, I felt that those of Nora and Lark were well fleshed out, while Hortense, Davis and Molly never really came alive for me, something I regret, because I feel I would have liked to get to know them better. Lovely book.

[Ola · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gem! Such a beautifully painted watercolor of friendship, love, re-defining family and home in the circa 1930-40's Boston/Cape Cod/New York. I really recommend it as a feel good read which also challenges norms and strives for utopias. Enjoy!

[Mcerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read, especially apealling for those who appreciate a more experimental structure in novels. Vivid, lyrical, sensory prose.

[Marianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story spans 15+ years, told in small snippets, but absolutely nothing is left out. Beautiful imagery abounds.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Multiple protagonists and points of view. Worth a reread.

[Caitlin Batstone · Rating 2 out of 5]

meh. the writing was cheesy and contrived at times. (example: "how hortense chortled!")

[Sunita]

Thooughtful, easy read