Stay and Fight

Stay and Fight follows a rotating cast of narrators making do on a plot of land in Appalachia. Although set in the present, the homesteading project they tackle, which includes a lot of acorns and snakes but no running water, would be perfectly recognizable by Laura Ingalls Wilder. What she would make of the non-traditional family they create, or of ffitch's 21st-century feminist sensibility, is another matter. The characters (one of whom is a Seattle expatriate) are fascinating if not exactly likable, and their choice to make their land and lives their own way, instead of abandoning the project, ultimately makes this a story of redemption in a sometimes bleak environment. —Erica (from the Madison Books newsletter)