3.75 but rounding up.

Let me begin by saying I don't think the blurb was accurate. NOT at all "hilarious." Certainly some humor, but... Definitely a novel about family and independent spirit. Also described as a protest novel--again, not a conventional protest per se, but an alternate lifestyle--way out of the mainstream.

Populated by strong, stubborn women--not necessarily likeable. Told in the voices of the main characters--Helen [Mean Aunt--who starts the novel], Lily and Karen [partners]; and their son, Perley--via sperm donor. Other, peripheral characters--one laughs the most at the descriptions of Rudy [in particular] and Aldi.

A story of love, persistence, and emotional and physical survival in the hils of Appalachia/West Virginia. A hardscrabble, basic life--by choice. Their diet and living conditions appalling. I didn't particularly care for the ending, but I'm not sure how I would have ended it/wanted it done differently.

I loved Perley--his world of elves and the wolves. His naivete. His fantasy/reality was, however, somewhat offputting because his [their] lives were [to me] dysfunctional--though it worked for them--to a point. Poor Perley, so out of sync, insulted/isolated. He wants to go to school; his moms resist, but he goes, at age 7--setting the latter part of the novel in motion.

And the snakes--who inhabited all the women's and Perley's lives. They too have a significant and vivid role in this story.

Some great descriptions:

Rudy: "...hairy face so full of sawdust it looked like he'd been breaded."

"I smiled to hide my heart, struggling to escape from my chest. My cheeks broke ice when they lifted."

"The loneliness was as insulating as a layer of snow."

"...rode to work listening to Springsteen, the only boss Jay said he could stand." Ha!

A completely unique read melding the themes of IDAHO with the setting and grit of EDUCATED and the unforgettable voice of ROOM (and many others). Told through the perspectives of three strong women living on a plot of land in Appalachia and the small boy they’re raising together. Parents Karen and Lily want to build the family and love they want to see in the world, and Helen - unexpectedly alone and living off the land after her boyfriend abandons his dreams of self sufficiency (and her). The three of them along with an anarchist rusty tree trimmer who pauses his whiskey drinking and ranting long enough to care for this unconventional family, love the land and independence as much as the creative and beautiful son, Perley, being raised on it. Starts slow and at times feels like two novels - one with Helen and Rudy, and another with Karen and Lily - but Perley’s voice and view is perfectly realized and it’s ending is utterly satisfying.

Stay and Fight is such a remarkable novel. It is filled with very strong characters that I got to know quite intimately because the story is told from alternating points of view of the different characters. It is a story about emotional and physical survival; about family and love; about staying and fighting for who and what you believe in. This is a story worth reading. I highly recommend it. Advance reader copy was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was a book unlike anything I'd ever read, and I loved it.  Each character has such a unique voice, especially Perley, the son who wants to forge his own life and deals with the repercussions of joining society on a more mainstream level.  Helen and Karen are so alike that they can't do anything but argue, and Lily wants nothing more than to be a good parent in the only ways she knows how.

Stay and Fight represents Ohio in a way I've never seen before, focusing on this found family through a separatist lens, through Marxist and feminist lenses, and more.  Ffitch does an incredible job of describing what likely most of us have never experienced--roughing it, and I mean really roughing it for years, as though they were survivalists.  They learn to homestead, to farm, to take care of the snakes.  They argue, they fight, they love each other.  

Each bit of this novel is so believable, especially the love Lily has for her son, especially CPS' actions, especially Karen's need to run away to come back.  This is a novel filled to the brim with strong characters, in personality, voice, and tone.  Ffitch has certainly created a modern-day masterpiece juxtaposing the need for truly simple living and the status quo of mainstream media-focused society.

Stay and Fight
By: Madeline Ffitch
Description
This hilarious, truth-telling debut upends notions of family, protest, and Appalachia, and forces us to reimagine an America we think we know

Helen arrives in Appalachian Ohio full of love and eager to carry out her boyfriend’s ideas for living off the land. Too soon, with winter coming, her boyfriend calls it quits. Helped by Rudy, her government-questioning, wisdom-spouting, seasonal-affective-disordered boss, and a neighbor couple, Helen makes it to spring. But Karen and Lily are expecting their first child, a boy, which means their time at the Women’s Land Trust is over. 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. Soon, the outside world is brought clamoring into their makeshift family.

Set in a region known for its independent spirit, Madeline ffitch’s 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 the viability of strategic action. It is a family novel that refuses to limit the possibilities of love. And it is a debut that both breaks with tradition and celebrates it.

A rightful heir to great American novels from A Confederacy of Dunces to The Grapes of Wrath to LaRose, Stay and Fight takes you, laughing and thinking, into a new understanding of the American landscape and what it means to be free.
Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book.
What a beautiful read. Full of humor and a bit of hard reality. I was invested all the way with the characters. Helen is a tough lady which moves along day by day. She becomes close to the crew of folks and wow....no spoilers. I truly enjoyed the journey and Quitters never win.

Wow-- though relatively short, I feel like I have traveled on a long, valuable journey with this gritty novel spanning several years. The reader comes to know each character intimately and feels part of their unconventional community rooted in their anti-establishment sentiments and in their fierce desires for self-reliance and uncultivated wildness. As the title suggests, this book is all about doggedly staying and fighting for what--and most especially who--you believe in. Lily, one of the protagonists, says it so well in her observation that encapsulates the spirit of the novel: "leaving is nothing special. Leaving is just leaving. Staying is the hard thing."