Stay and Fight

by Madeline Ffitch

Book Overview

"Like Bastard Out of Carolina, ffitch's electrifying debut novel is a paean to independence and a protest against the materialism of our age." --O: The Oprah Magazine

"Delightfully raucous." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

Helen arrives in Appalachian Ohio full of love and her boyfriend's ideas for living off the land. Too soon, with winter coming, he calls it quits. Helped by Rudy--her government-questioning, wisdom-spouting, seasonal-affective-disordered boss--and a neighbor couple, Helen makes it to spring. Those neighbors, Karen and Lily, are awaiting the arrival of their first child, a boy, which means their time at the Women's Land Trust must end.

So Helen invites the new family to throw in with her--they'll split the work and the food, build a house, and make a life that sustains them, if barely, for years. Then young Perley decides he wants to go to school. And Rudy sets up a fruit-tree nursery on the pipeline easement edging their land. The outside world is brought clamoring into their makeshift family.

Set in a region known for its independent spirit, Stay and Fight shakes up what it means to be a family, to live well, to make peace with nature and make deals with the system. It is a protest novel that challenges our notions of effective action. It is a family novel that refuses to limit the term. And it is a marvel of storytelling that both breaks with tradition and celebrates it. Best of all, it is full of flawed, cantankerous, flesh-and-blood characters who remind us that conflict isn't the end of love, but the real beginning.

Absorbingly spun, perfectly voiced, and disruptively political, Madeline ffitch's Stay and Fight forces us to reimagine an Appalachia--and an America--we think we know. And it takes us, laughing and fighting, into a new understanding of what it means to love and to be free.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374268126
• ISBN13: 9780374268121
• Release Date: July 2019
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful

This is one of the best books I've read. So sweet and sad and funny. A true feeling of the reality of living in Appalachian Ohio. How we strive to live and how that compromises with mainstream society.

Didn’t want this book to end…

Got this book for a book club with my partner. Has been so great to read together. Its fun and adventurous and admirable. You definitely won’t regret buying…I wish it had sequels!