American Arcadia

by Laura Scalzo

"A gorgeous riff of a New York City novel." ~Wayne Johnson, Multiple Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of THE RED CANOE, DON'T THINK TWICE, and SIX CROOKED HIGHWAYS

New York City, 1985, the scaffolded and torchless Statue of Liberty is under reconstruction, the Twin Towers hum with money, and the clubs pulse with music. Young Wall Streeter, Mina Berg, and her roommate, Chry Risk, strike up friendships with the volatile Danny Nyro and easygoing Dare Fiore. Mina wants Chry's family prestige, while Chry only wants to play the bass like Jaco Pastorius. Nyro trades on his father's notoriety and Dare is keeping secrets. Each of these twenty-somethings attempts to rewrite their origin story as they find themselves knotted in the cross purposes of friendship and love, life and death. Meanwhile, the Sicilian grandmothers on Staten Island are telling tall tales of a fugitive mermaid who lives in the New York Harbor. It's for you to decide if she's a monster or a saint. Themes of art, immigration, reproductive rights, AIDS, assault, class, and betrayal, simmer beneath a dynamic plot that spans one life-altering year.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 2, 2023

About the author

I’ve lived in Washington, DC, for one year in Cicada Years which is seventeen by traditional count. Our family arrived shortly before Brood X and here it is, back again already. And here I am, still in the swoon and sway of the wonder of this magnificent city. There’s so much to say about DC, it’s impossible to pick one thing but I’ll try. Come for the Cherry Blossoms, it is not overrated, it is astonishing. Astonishing not just to see the sights at the Tidal Basin, but also to witness the simple yet nearly incomprehensible act of regeneration and beauty. There is no space to be jaded, the awe is real and on every face you encounter. If you can’t come for the Cherry Blossoms, come another time. Stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with travelers from around the world. No matter if it’s day or night, whether it’s crowded or just you and a few others, you will feel a kind of collective kinship. Before I moved to DC, I didn’t think blocks of stone could speak to me so thoroughly, but they can and do. They say let’s not forget, let’s work toward something better, let’s be in this together.

When I was quite young, my mom let me play with her old college typewriter. It came attached to the inside of its own little suitcase, which was interesting enough, but even better was the rough surface of the body, the smooth keys, the transfer of the shapes of steel-cast letters through the inky ribbon to the page. I couldn’t read or write but I aspired to become a lightning speed typist, guessing I’d need it someday. Fifty words a minute gets you a temp job in early ‘80s New York City. Not lightning speed, the bare minimum actually, but I managed it. Many years past then, I finally figured out how to turn type into stories and books. I had always known that was the endgame, but was a long time lost on how to get there.

If we’d met when I was elementary school age, I’d ask you to be my pen pal. I loved writing and receiving letters, I loved stationary and stamps and checking the mailbox or better, the post office a mile down the road from our cottage on Chautauqua Lake. I still love all these things. Write me, I’ll write you back.

In high school I wrote notes to my friends during class, ballpoint pen on ruled tablet paper folded into a triangle like a you fold a flag. I wrote notes when I didn’t have a novel propped open inside whatever textbook I was supposed to be looking at. I really should have paid more attention, but as my son says, I’m glad I skipped all those Spanish classes and read all those books, they’re really coming in handy now. (Acorn. Oak.). I did manage my way to Syracuse University and got to major in English and boy did I love that. Reading books, yes, that’s for me. In fact, my favorite thing in the world is and forever has been reading on the cottage porch at Chautauqua in the afternoon when the house is quiet and the sun is starting to slant toward the horizon and there’s a breeze coming up off the lake.

My first novel, THE SPEED OF LIGHT IN AIR, WATER, AND GLASS is a love letter to the District of Columbia and my answer to the question as to what all these monuments mean. The story begins with a vision I had of a boy asleep at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Why was he there? Why was he sleeping? This indelible mind picture took me to the Secret War in Laos and to the inside of the CIA, among many other places. My imagination delivered the truth of things and the truth of things delivered the fiction. This is my experience as a writer.

My scrappy reading and writing habits have come in handy. I wrote THE SPEED OF LIGHT with every spare minute I had at the time and in the most unlikely places. You could find me camped out, possibly on the floor, my laptop balanced on my knees, almost anywhere. A lot of that book was written at the Rockville Ice Rink during the kids’ skating lessons or hockey practice. Later I realized the rink is just a few miles as the crow flies from the graves of Scott and Zelda

Reviews

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Arcadia performs the magic trick that truly good books can: it transports you to another time, another place, another age. In these pages, we are whisked to 1980s New York, into the world of 20-somethings who are vulnerable, damaged, and searching.

I was pulled in immediately by the fascinating characters, brought to life by gritty realism. I had the pleasures of immersing myself in the pages while reading as well as longing to get back to them when not. Laura Scalzo's writing is fine, compelling, enchanting.

Coming of age is so tough, and some of us don't survive to tell the story. I ached for the young people in this novel. Wealth, love, ambition, sex, drugs, AIDS, art... it's a lot for 20-somethings to navigate. It's as complicated as a jazz riff by Jaco Pastorius, and just as beautiful.

[Raj Agrawal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laura Scalzo, a dear friend, invited me to be an early reader of her most-recent book, American Aradia. This kind of invitation was a first for me, and it was a rare honor.

I suppose any form of art takes on meaning unique to the encounter between the art and its audience. Here are thoughts from my encounter:

Complex emotions, against a backdrop of a decade equally complex, searching for meaning, purpose, origin, destiny, belonging — what is true, what is good, what is love and to be loved?

I felt that pursuit throughout the main character’s internal narrative, as though I were reading her diary, but one written with full awareness of all of her senses.

Being ashamed of who you are, inherently, and discovering the wholeness of that self-loathing along with others who feel the same about themselves — simply because of who they are — and the resultant self-destruction that manifests. Then, the role meaningless death plays in bringing meaning to life, but maybe too late. Maybe life doesn’t have meaning at all, other than to cherish each moment.

I was impressed by the depth of research, details of life in New York in the 80s, skill and insight into very human moments. The details Laura painted were unnerving for me, profound in the way she brought life to each scene in a way that I felt I was experiencing myself. I found myself uncomfortable at times with her rawness, but she immersed me into real life in ways I’ve never experienced, but in a way I needed to connect to the heart of this book.

I am grateful for Laura’s beautiful soul, how she’s expressed it once again in written form, and that she counts me as a friend.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mina and her roommate Chry are living life to the fullest in 1985 New York City. Mina works on Wall Street with a guy named Dare, who then introduces her and Chry to a charismatic fellow named Nyro. Thus begins Chry’s obsession with Dare and the four of them become connected in a fateful, tragic union.

As Mina navigates the year, we witness intriguing encounters and amusing anecdotes. It’s nostalgic without being gimmicky (cocaine, landlines, AIDS!). The narrative is linear but meandering, and some scenes were intense, while others were vague. I liked Mina, but everyone else seemed shallow and self-absorbed, especially Nyro and Chry (the two entitled rich kids). The last 50 pages were gut-wrenching, but were a testament to the era. It was a complex glimpse at a year-in-the-life of Mina and how she managed to survive the chaos.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher.

[Heidi Worley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scalzo weaves an incredible tale through the lives of four young adults living their best lives in 1980s New York. She captures the zeitgeist and reminds us of the early fear of HIV/AIDS before we knew very much about the virus and of what life was like when you worked in the Twin Towers before 9/11. I loved gallivanting with Scalzo through the struggles and lessons of Mina, Chry, Dare, and Nyro and loved how they loved each other, what they knew and didn’t know about each other, and what they learned about identity, suffering, and belonging. A treasure of a book!!

[Diana Rojas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished American Arcadia a week ago and I'm still thinking about it, thinking about the characters and their lives and New York in the mid-80s. It's a haunting, well-told story-- a story of longing for what we don't have: Mina wants Chry's ease of life; Chry makes her life difficult trying to achiever musical perfection she wasn't born to; everyone seeking for the person they want to see in the mirror. I didn't find all of the characters lovable, but they became real and I recognized them and was compelled to care about what happened in that eventful year that the book tells of -- yelling at some, rooting for others, eventually caring about all of their outcomes. Scalzo constructs a colorful mosaic of lives and emotions that become a rich and mournful portrait of that moment in history. Her use of mythology colorfully adds to the layers of emotion and tragedy, and the undertone of jazz throughout gives it a steady, if unpredictable, beat. Highly recommend this read!

[Mark Hummel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It can be one of those interesting points of connection to realize as you read a book set in an earlier era that you were the exact age of its characters at the time of the book’s setting. In the case of American Arcadia, the year is 1985, and the four characters that make up this novel are taking their first steps as recent college graduates and, presumably, as adults, just as I was. I grew up and attended college in the Rocky Mountain West, light years from the New York City setting of American Arcadia. Indeed, there would probably have been few places more alien to my twenty-three-year-old self than NYC. But of course, as someone who, even as a young person was fascinated with history and politics and culture NYC was/is constantly on my radar, and given my youth and the nature of the times, few places were more important in 1985. Like most engaged people who follow news and trends and finance, let alone those of us who are avid readers, New York has likely felt real to us or certainly on the fringes of our vision of reality for all of our lives. This is even more true for those of us who spend a good deal of our time reading books. How often had I tried to imagine its textures, its smells, its energy. In 1985, Manhattan was where the world was happening. In Scalzo’s hands, the place becomes like another character, vibrant, complicated, a thousand villages amassed in one metropolis, a place at moments sleek and fashionable, in others gritty and desperate. She takes readers onto commodities trading floors, into terrace parties, onto its ferries and into its fish markets. The Hudson emerges as another living being, one that both divides and connects, as do its bridges, and the characters literally immerse themselves in it, define their lives by it, and infuse their imaginations by stories told of ancestors who gave themselves over to it. Overseeing the city and the lives of the four friends at the center of the story is the ever-present Statue of Liberty, wrapped in scaffolding as it undergoes restoration and missing its torch. There is a message in the reminders of the landmark at the periphery of the character’s vision, and Scalzo is so accomplished a writer that the message here, like others, is nuanced and sophisticated, insightful and never judgmental.

Contained entirely in the year 1985, and structured by seasons, the New York setting is never merely backdrop, including its center stage placement in the beginning of the worst years of the AIDS crisis, a time when AIDS was still little understood and caused widespread fear, there was no treatment, and extracted a horrific toll (a year that brought 3,799 deaths in NYC alone). It is an age when women were first making inroads on Wall Street. Many of the power brokers wrangling NYC politics of the era became the power brokers at the national stage in the decades since.

The novel is presented through a first-person narrator, Mina Berg, who, I must say, was the perfect narrator for this reader, as she is not from the city and is an outsider among her friends for growing up in humble environs up-river, the adopted daughter of a nurse who is a single parent. Abandoned in a church baptismal font as an infant, Nina examines the world around her and those who populate it with a scrutiny fitting for someone looking always for her own origin story. Meanwhile her three friends, who include her wealthy college roommate, a co-intern in her introductory immersion on a commodities trading floor, and his roommate, are each apparently trying to rewrite their own origin stories. Over the course of the novel, all four face difficult, often terrifying lessons about adult life, including the unwanted advances of men in positions of power and exposure to the death and disease. If college life, particularly on the campuses of elite institutions is a kind of incubator, the inaugural year as working adults and struggling artists instantly removes nearly all support devices. Scalzo allows readers to know these four characters outside and in, forming realistic and psychologically complex character portraits with a rare depth of insight, grace, and sympathy. There are magical moments in this novel when we see characters defy their natural instincts in order to be better versions of themselves, caring for friends even when doing so risks harm to themselves or becoming the true adults while their parents toy with others lives with no concern for the cost. Scalzo consistently creates characters who reveal the nuances of psychological complexity that, in the best fiction, can be accomplished with greater clarity than in life.

There are remarkable surprises within these pages, carefully constructed connections and explanations that are presented with such subtlety the reader feels like a partner in their revelation. Much of the novel allows us to peer within rarified worlds of old money families and the power they wield while aware that the twenty-somethings in whose lives we are immersed will either be the first generation not to inherit that wealth or its history or its obligation, or they will be so broken that the money may be all that is left to them.

Throughout, Scalzo writes with such stunningly beautiful prose that I wanted to linger on nearly every page. It is the kind of prose that is so rhythmical and so in control that it entered my ear with a direct vein to my heart, prose that made me feel its beat and its breath. Her precise language and pitch perfect syntax will have readers imagining that its flow is the wake of a sea ghost plying the entrance of the Hudson, passing under the spans we can all name even if we have never crossed them, charting a course equidistant between the torchless Lady Liberty and doomed towers. It is a novel that left me breathless. It is a story that was entirely fulfilling yet left me thinking about the lives I encountered in its pages for weeks.

[Mark Finkelpearl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you remember the Eighties? Too young to have been there? Either way, Scalzo drops the reader into a world some of us may not recognize but which we all know. In 1985, Reaganism has a firm grip on the country, the planting of Me Generation seeds that have grown into our place now where every individual is a potential brand, grabbing dollars on social media; amassing friends and likes from people we may never know, nor want to. In New York, Mina & Dare are grabbing their dollars the old fashioned way - as entry level Wall Street 20-something’s. They’re joined by Chry, Mina’s roommate and the privileged daughter of a state senator. Young grown ups far from home but not quite yet completely untethered from their parents (at least in Chry’s case) they are desperate to love all the while battling post college ennui; it’s time to discover who they are. But the Eighties were an unforgiving era and the twists and turns for these young friends out on their own are ones they couldn’t possibly see coming. I was there and can attest, they could
never have understood the dark forces lurking just to the right of their zest for life. Scalzo’s written a page turner that acts like a time machine back to that moment just after college when your own independence awestruck you. You looked around and realized for the first time ever that you were in charge of you. The power of that responsibility was both liberating and terrifying; like wandering onto an icy lake and hoping that the frozen water beneath your feet is frozen just enough to hold you up. Will it be for Mina, Chry, and Dare?

[Mary Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was fortunate (and honored) to be asked be an early reader of Laura Scalzo's latest book, American Arcadia. I was immediately drawn in to the story and invested in the characters, and the farther I got in the book, the more invested I became. Each of the four main characters tugged at my heart in different ways. Full disclosure, I'm both a grandchild of Italian immigrants and grew up in New Jersey, both of which play strong parts in the story; but I don't believe either of those are in any way necessary to fall under the spell of Scalzo's characters and narrative. Lot of big themes underpin the story -- immigration, family relations, reproductive rights, and most of all, identity, but the author does an amazing job of weaving these in and making the reader think about them without beating you over the head with Important Issues.

Scalzo's writing is lovely and evocative, with sharply drawn details, and perfectly captures the New York City zeitgeist of the times, with Wall Street exploding and the AIDS crisis beginning. In contrast, her mythical fable of Sirena Fugittiva unfolds, dreamlike, as a fairy tale.

As soon as this book comes out, buy it. You won't regret it and you won't be able to put it down.

[Judy & Marianne from Long and Short Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1980s was a memorable time, with big things turning the world upside down or individual homes. This story, set in 1985, in New York, covers some of those things such as AIDS and friends and family dynamics.

Mina and her friend Chry live their busy lives in this big city, Mina on Wall Street, and Chry as the daughter of a senator, trying to find her own way through music. They befriend a nice guy with a secret and a rich guy whose bold behavior often encourages the others to take chances. Each of them is bathed in mystery. For example, Mina was left to die as a baby but adopted. Will she ever know the truth from where she come?

As these twenty-somethings live day-by-day, having fun and working, they discover things about themselves and others. Not all these things lead to somewhere good. They face tragic realities, and readers are sure to pick up some of these moving moments and feel them as well.

One learns about the culture of the era, the New York of the eighties and what a bustling time it was, in some ways, different that it is today. Questions are often different, but not always. While reading about these friends and their families, one is likely to be entertained. The writing is personal and addictive. Why not check this one out?

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a twenty something living and working in New York City, I found Scalzo's "American Arcadia" characters and themes to be as relatable as ever. In fact, it wasn't until the later pages (you will understand what I am referring to when you read it), was I starkly reminded that the backdrop is a 1980s version of my city, not the version I live in today. Chry, Mina, Dare, & Nyro could easily be my friends - getting up to shenanigans on New Years Eve, weird loft parties, happy hours with colleagues that turn into blurry late nights, dare I admit even the upchuck in the street during a morning commute. I've been there and so has every other young New Yorker trying to make their way and find their place in this great city. It's always a treat to read a book set in New York and Scalzo's depiction does not disappoint. She captures the essence of the city and its people in such a poignant and beautiful way and reminds us all that love and friendship can be fleeting. Hold tight when you find it and hold tight to this book because it's a classic you'll want to return to year after year. And with that I'm off to ride the Staten Island Ferry in search of something.

[Eric F. Goldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hooked on the opening lines about the Oyster Bar, to this day one of my favorite places in any city. I love how the author captured a city, a decade, and not to mention the energy of mixtapes and the walkman, back into my mind. The simplicity and complexity of the four characters was brilliantly written, and as an adult it was hard to not want to warn them of what could happen - because this writing pulls in you. After a few chapters I was along for their ride.

I love how the novel deeply covers its character's lives over one year that tests the aspirations, judgement, and fate of the four young adults and it worked for me. The writing about the professional and sexual tensions and dynamics of a unique period was pure and honest and my familiarity with the city allowed me to not get stuck on details that sometimes sidetrack me. Two days (with distractions) to read the first few chapters and one day to read the rest - that's a good book.

[Alison Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have only been to NYC a few times. I avoid it. I count reading American Arcadia as not just a visit to The City but on an insider's tour of its best and worst sides; an inside tour of how young professionals scrape by in a tough city; a fly on the wall in the wealthiest apartments. The narrator, Mina, feels she doesn't belong, yet there she was, pulling me through the city in the 1980's with her. I was at the parties with her, watching drugs get inhaled, suffering the flaky roommate, going along with the toast at an upstate manse, "to suffering!" Then I was navigating Wall Street happy hours, Staten Island ferries, and tricky friendships with peers who are careless with their wealth. I have been on a journey with Mina and I highly recommend it! Scalzo's writing is so good, I feel smarter having read this book.

[Candi Sary · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We lie and lie and lie in the circle beneath the sky and dream dreams about only this. I respectfully decline the universe’s standard offer of the future.”
This powerful and thoughtful novel takes readers back to the 80s—the music, the vibe, the drugs, the money, the drama. Scalzo resurrects 80s New York brilliantly through two 20-something characters, Mina and Chry. They come from very different backgrounds—one a congressman’s daughter, the other abandoned as an infant and without clear background. They are roommates and close friends who navigate the big city together, searching for love, purpose, and identity. It’s the decade of AIDS and coke and greed and women with big hair but little power. Mina and Chry are at the center of it all as we witness their small glories and harsh consequences, their despair and hope. It’s a beautiful, engaging and unforgettable read.

[Anne R. Hoyt · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Arcadia explores the innocence and exciting hopes and dreams of young adults starting out in NYC during the 1980's and the challenges, barriers and obstacles of navigating friendship, love, identity and death. The backdrop of bustling Wall Street is juxtaposed with street artists, city corruption and the emerging AIDS epidemic where Scalzo chronicles the painful stigma and lack of support or resources for the afflicted and the dying during that period. Scalzo brilliantly weaves the characters individual stories together throughout the NYC landscape as they confront choices, and grapple with love, loss, injustice and family bonds. A compelling, thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read. Writing and characters were totally enjoyable. It was such a time- stamp read - put the reader right back in NYC with all of the zeitgeist of the 1980s - Wall Street, AIDS and the optimism and awakening of youth. And those characters take a “bite of the apple” - both NYC and adulthood - and discover that neither is quite the promised paradise. Despite being a story that includes the darker corners of that era, I found myself rooting for and liking all of the characters. They were complex and evolving throughout the book. But it’s Mina who sticks with you - as she is left standing at the end. Loved the details, the dialogue, and the storytelling. I totally recommend the read for a slice of the 1980s in NYC.

[Michelle Brafman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, my goodness. American Arcadia! What a read! Laura Scalzo's American Arcadia drops the reader into New York City in the year 1985 when Wall Street was humming, the Statue of Liberty was torchless, and the AIDS epidemic was starting to ravage the city. And if this tension weren't enough, Scalzo explores the volatility and excitement of life as a twenty-something. College roomies, Mina Berg and Chry Risk, are hungry, a little lost, and vulnerable. This novel is a meditation on friendship, a love letter to a specific NYC era, an exploration of the intersection between class and love, and more. And the writing is lyrical and so smart. Highly recommend for book clubs.

[Ginger Pinholster · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Vivid Coming of Age Story

Two young women, Chry and Mina, are living a fast life — “adulting” in 1980s New York City, fueled by their ambitions, cocaine, and the shared human need for belonging. The city becomes its own character, a florid urban adventure-scape where the quest for love and career advancement looms like the shadows of skyscrapers. Laura Scalzo’s writing cuts to the quick; she has a precise, smart, edgy way with words, and the book delves deep into the irony of socioeconomic disparities amid Wall Street’s glittering heyday. American Arcadia raises questions that will keep ringing even after the final page is turned.

[Joanna Theiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never sacrificing plot for the sake of flowery language, American Arcadia gives a vivid portrait of the 1980s, New York City, the friendship of four twenty-somethings, and how Mina, at the center of it all, matures. I found myself reading, again and again, a scene in which the four friends are wandering words surrounding a bucolic mansion and lie down in a clearing: “I’m asleep and awake, dreaming of the exact place I am in… And for the moment, I don’t know anything else so there’s nothing to dream about. We lie and lie and lie in the circle beneath the sky and dream dreams about only this. I respectfully decline the universe’s standard offer of the future.”

[Laura J Nitsos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scalzo’s crisp prose and compelling storytelling had me hooked from page one -- American Arcadia is an engrossing romp through the joy and angst of the early years of “adulting” and a poignant view of the journey of a twenty-something in the swirl of New York City in 1985, a time of both economic optimism and the global epidemic of HIV/AIDS. Against this backdrop, our female protagonist faces the myriad personal challenges of friendship, romance, family, identity, belonging and mortality within a tight, fast-reading narrative. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride!

[Melissa Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Arcadia is a force! Scalzo's voice is stunning and authoritative as an interrogation of the American Dream in the 1980's with all its trappings. The novel unravels the truth behind our careful, cultural facades to reveal the hope and failings of our shared humanity. With dreamlike, lyrical prose, Scalzo considers class, memory, and redemption. American Arcadia left me with an ache for the pain we inflict on ourselves and others but also with renewed faith in the human spirit's ability to endure and to triumph. What an amazing read!

[Laura Zam · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Arcadia is a gorgeous, lyrical, page-turner. I couldn't put it down, and I was so sad when it ended. The story takes place in 1985, in New York City -- the same year I moved to Manhattan. The author got every detail right! I had a blast revisiting 1980s New York. The novel focuses on a young woman trying to figure out her place in this world. Her friends are young people finding their own way as well. Their journeys are poignant, funny at times, and very real. The storytelling was so artful and compelling. I loved this book, and highly recommend it!

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adored this book. The characters are masterfully written, and are so real that I feel like I know them myself. More than that, I feel like I've been the Mina to a Chry or two in my life, and this story captures the beautiful yet painful friendship between the two so insightfully. This novel is a tapestry of powerful themes that weave in and out, and tie together in the end in such a beautiful way. This is one of those books that sticks with you long after you read it, and one that you can't stop reading yet hate to see it end.

[Caroline Bock · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Arcadia by Laura Scalzo- the novel is a gorgeous dive back into 80s Manhattan. The characters leap off the page. Their friendships and loves are interwoven with high-powered Wall Street jobs, indie guitar-playing ambitions, the beginning of the AIDS crisis, and age-old love and romance as a backdrop. A propulsive read on the highs and lows of being young in the City in the 1908s --Caroline

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel of NYC in the 1980s. Its in large measure the story of a steadfast friendship between two young women, told by one of those women, Mina. It is also a story about families (the ones we have and the ones we wished we had); of betrayal and privilege (and lack of), of hard work and the early days of HIV when the dominant reaction was fear. A lot of interesting things are going on in this novel, making it a very satisfying read.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This tale of friendship unfolds at a New York City pace. You are invested in the characters after a few pages and spend a year with them exploring issues pertinent in the 1980’s, such as the fear of new illness, reproductive rights, and class, that still resonate today. The imagination with which the author weaves a story rich with history, superstition, love and loss is beautiful.

[Lisa Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author did a fabulous job with American Arcadia! I was in my 20’s during the 80’s and it brought back lots of memories. It was very thought provoking and definitely kept me on my toes! Growing up in the Northeast (Pennsylvania) the details brought me back to that wonderful time in my life. Can’t wait to read Laura’s next endeavor!

[Megan Schikora · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Arcadia illuminate the beauty, discord, and devastation of initiation into adulthood. In language alternately rich and stark, blending poetry and magic with straight razor prose, it follows four young people in 1980s New York City, whose lives intersect in unimaginable ways. A searing novel of becoming and of loss.

[Lynda M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping, gritty & bittersweet! Pulls you in from page 1. A year (1975) in the life of four 20-something friends in New York City...how they deal with their past lives, manage their present & choose their futures. Left me yearning for the next chapters...

[Marla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling story built around a group of characters you come to deeply know and care about. A creative and artfully woven narrative, with just a dash of mysticism.

[Mary Kay Zuravleff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous and lyrical. AMERICAN ARCADIA is a haunting lullaby of yearning set in 1980s New York. A foundling left in a baptismal font—to drown or be saved, she’d like to know—envies the privileged life of her best friend, who envies her right back. The lesson of this riveting and distinctly American story may be that, in the end, we are each improvising our life.

Whether Laura Scalzo is riffing on Jaco Pastorius, Wall Street brokers, mermaids in the New York harbor, or St. James Day—when you cut chicory with a gold knife at noon—you’ll be mesmerized by both this tale and the telling.