Fights!

by Scott McClanahan

Fights! is a novel set in the mountains of West Virginia and the indie literary scene in New York, uniting the two great love stories of Scott McClanahan’s life: his wife, the writer Juliet Escoria, and Tyrant Books publisher, Giancarlo DiTrapano. In his first novel in eight years, McClanahan interrogates the meaning of art, devotion, and destruction.

“Listen now. The song is starting over. And we’re driving to a party in the East Village with the radio on. And for a single moment we’re not worried about what happens to all of us in the end. Because for right now we’re all driving through the beautiful city, and we have rock ’n’ roll in our hearts. So turn it up Gian, and let us ride.” —Fights!

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Grief

Paperback

Published July 14, 2026

About the author

Scott McClanahan (born June 24, 1978) is an American writer, filmmaker, and martial artist. He lives in Beckley, West Virginia and is the author of eight books. His most recent book, The Sarah Book, was featured in Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and Playboy. NPR called the book "brave, triumphant and beautiful — it reads like a fever dream, and it feels like a miracle." McClanahan is also a co-founder of Holler Presents, a West Virginia-based production and small press company.

Reviews

[Kyle Seibel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading a Scott McClanahan book for the first time is one of the last remaining entirely singular experiences in contemporary literature. It is a style of writing that doesn't work if you don't feel it in your gut, your bones. The writing has to transcend its components; it has to be that good. And this absolutely is. I've read all of this writer's previous work along with some of the excerpts of this book in the Paris Review and the Relegation Reader and I'm a fairly rabid fan of this kind of writing in general, so I went into Fights! thinking that I knew what to expect. I was wrong. Within a few pages, I was off my feet, swept up in the cadence of sentences, the alarmingly direct addresses to the reader, the occasional digression of poetic koans. It's easy to get wrapped around the axel of defining what this book is. Memoir, memorial, novel, creative nonfiction. In the end, it's something far simpler, more musical, more magical. It is a book. And it's the best new one I've read in a long time.

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Scott's very best. Funny, heart-shattering, darkly hopeful, slyly innovative. Always the real deal.

[crowjonah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven’t read a book this breathlessly in years

[lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love exclamation points !!!!

and I love whatever the hell this book was

[Saeah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. It’s about nothing, and it’s about everything. It’s about love and it’s about hate, which is another word for love. It’s compulsively readable with some of the best sentence-by-sentence writing I’ve read in a while. It’s experimental in structure in a way that’s quite brilliant.

After I read it, I bought everything Scott McClanahan has ever written.

[Tao · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He said he wanted to wait for a few minutes before he began his search."

[Michael Duffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

McClanahan has really achieved something monumental here.

Still playing with the form and expertly wielding the pages of this book like a knife’s edge. It’s always keeping you on your toes. Between the bouts of nervous laughter and the fear and dread at what he’s capable of with a simple flick, is a book that’s so sincere and tender and beautiful.

The plain words of a mountain man arranged in pure poetry. These men are obsessed with books and words and legacy. It’s almost infectious.

The only thing McClanahan loves more than books is the people he writes about in his own. His work is a way to immortalize the love he has for his home and his people and you feel it constantly: in the moments of peace and in the moments of chaos.

West Virginia bleeds out of these pages: its mountains, its people, and the mountains its people become.

[Kate Durbin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Banger!

[brandi gaspard · Rating 5 out of 5]

scott is my favorite living storyteller

[Miles Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

We're all Sarah. We're all Scott. We're all Gian. We're all Julia. They're all all of us.

[alexggrandma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got to read this out loud with some special people.

This is an honor. Reading a new scott mcclanahan. Cracking one open and sharing.

He is a hillbilly poet. Watch as he turns and becomes the magic of life on a dime.

Thank you scott for this book and your other ones too and their ability to connect us and reveal the similarities between our hearts.

Read this out loud with someone you love. Or with a new friend. Or with your uncle. Or with yourself in the mirror, with candles, without fear, without socks.

[Abigail McLain · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was laugh-out-loud funny, in a ‘I probably shouldn’t be laughing at this’ kind of way. But then the book ended, and I spent my afternoon ugly crying in the bathroom at work.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautiful; so bleak.

[Ace Boggess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has everything I love about McClanahan’s work. He writes with humor, heart, and guts, which is the perfect combination. As is typical of his writing, the line between fact and fiction is blurry and possibly nonexistent. The fights the title refers to are intense but often hilarious, like Hunter Thompson arguing with William Burroughs about who can shoot straightest while high. There’s a lot of foreshadowing in the book, too, about the sad but still somehow uplifting ending that reminded me a bit of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This is a wonderful book and well worth reading.

[Joe Kemper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Give this guy the Pulitzer

[Jay Slayton-Joslin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really beautiful. The only downside to reading Scott McClanahan is that you just want to write like Scott McClanahan and no-one else really can. Tyrant published a lot of books that are really important to me so it felt like a look behind the curtain of a scene I loved.

After I interviewed Gian once he sent me a box of all the Tyrant books and a Scott McClanahan shirt overseas that I still wear to this day. Sadly, our paths didn't cross when I was in Italy but you can see the lasting impact he had on writers and people still.

Scott McClanahan wrote a book about his loves but it's also so much more. It's a book about passion, writing, doubt. It made me nostalgic for America and an America beyond the big city but those who live and love in the quieter parts that are often overlooked.

It's the kind of book that opens up pathways between your brain and your heart. I hope Scott knows he's an important writer and his words mean a lot to those who read them. To keep going and teaching us about the feelings we struggle to describe. We need him.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read several of McClanahan’s books, I was familiar with his style and ready to welcome some new riffs. I was less certain that he would still be able to charm after so much time has passed. I shouldn’t have worried. I stepped right back in and felt nostalgia for his old books while simultaneously being enthralled by his new one. McClanahan has grown up some over the years and through his life experience, yet remains as funny and heartbreaking as ever. This book gives me reassurance that independent presses are still keeping it real and a good place to look for new reads. I heard that Otessa Moshfegh’s husband picked up Tyrant Books, so we’ll see…in the meantime, read McClanahan’s latest and see what you think.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw at the bookstore, caught my eye, first few pages hooked to me and I bought it because I like supporting small presses. It’s rare to just stumble upon a book this good

[George Sutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm just like Giancarlo

[Sahra · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I was American I would write a love poem with my social security number for this book!!!!

[Janie Borofsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

We will all die and become mountains, but for now we are alive.
McClanahan reminds us of that so poetically in this homage to the people and places he loves so deeply.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! So funny and serious and touching. More, please.

[mikayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

guys I’m on the train crying

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve ever had a better reading experience than when I read SM.

[John Kenny · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

Really wonderful, adventurous storytelling, a refreshing joy to read

[Ally Tuttelman · Rating 4.75 out of 5]

i want to articulate successfully how human this book made me feel, and i don’t have the vocabulary to do so. really reminded me of my high school friends, and my family, and how when you’re so deep IN IT you don’t realize the absurdity of everything until you’re looking inwards.

[Hannah Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shit, I don’t even know what to say about this one. It was beautiful. The prose style is so simple, and instead of feeling banal or repetitive, it actually allows the depth, complexity, and wittiness of the author to shine through. I fell in love with Gian and Juliet too. I wept at the final pages— what a compelling exploration of grief.

Okay, I’m going to sit with this one for a while, I think!

[Taylor Napolsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good

[Jack Bullion · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should admit that for the first half of this book, I was kind of underwhelmed. Maybe I was in the wrong headspace, or maybe it had been so long since I’d read McClanahan (I just realized I’ve read just about every single thing he’s ever written) that I was having trouble reorienting into his voice. Then, at right about the novel’s midpoint, McClanahan did something so structurally audacious it essentially reset the entire book. And from then on, every word and every scene that followed absolutely glowed.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a journey. Like a car ride of talking life experiences, where some is focused and some distracted. Some upsetting, laughable, relatable, and not. Definitely not for everyone, but if you're feeling like going along for a ride...