Stay and Fight

<p><b>"Like <i>Bastard Out of Carolina</i>, ffitch''s electrifying debut novel is </b><b>a paean to independence and a protest against the materialism of our age." —<i>O: The Oprah Magazine </i></b><br><br><b>"Delightfully raucous." —Sam Sacks, <i>The Wall Street Journal</i></b><br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>Set in a region known for its independent spirit, <i>Stay and Fight</i> 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.<br><br>Absorbingly spun, perfectly voiced, and disruptively political, Madeline ffitch''s <i>Stay and Fight</i> 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.</p>