Farewell My Subaru
“An international bestseller!”
Like many Americans, Doug Fine enjoys his creature comforts, but he also knows full well that they’ve to this point kept him addicted to oil. So he wonders: Is it possible to keep his Netflix and his car, his Wi-Fi and his subwoofers, and still reduce his carbon footprint?
In an attempt to find out, Fine ups and moves to a remote ranch in New Mexico where (to the amusement of 90th generation locals) he brazenly vows to grow his own food, use sunlight to power his world, and drive on restaurant grease. Never mind that he’s never raised so much as a chicken or a bean. Or that he has no mechanical or electrical skills.
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Whether he’s installing Japanese solar panels, defending the goats he found on Craigslist against coyotes, or co-opting waste oil from the local Chinese restaurant to try and fill the new “veggie oil” tank in his ROAT (short for Ridiculously Oversized American Truck), Fine’s extraordinary undertaking makes one thing clear: It is easy being green, provided your solar panels don’t electrocute you, your goats don’t outsmart you, and your vegetable oil-powered truck exhaust doesn’t give you the munchies (it smells like Kung Pao chicken). In fact, Doug’s journey uncovers a slew of surprising facts about alternative energy, organic and locally grown food, and climate change.
Both a hilarious romp and an inspiring call to action, the international bestseller Farewell, My Subaru makes a profound statement about trading today’s instant gratifications for a deeper, more enduring kind of satisfaction.
What People Are Saying
The details of Doug Fine’s experiment in green living are great fun…what we are built for. It’ll make you want to move!~
— Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
Fine survives drought, biblical floods, and UN-hating [ranchers] as he gradually becomes ’solarized’ …along the way readers will root for this dry sharp wit and his rosy green dream. Fine’s funny struggle to become a better world citizen will entertain both the eco-aware, and those who doze peacefully in their home’s formaldehyde fumes.
— Bookpage
Fine is a…storyteller in the mold of…Douglas Adams. If you’re a fan of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy-style humor — and also looking to find out how to raise your own livestock to feed your ice-cream fetish — Farewell, My Subaru may prove a vital tool.
— Washington Post
A chuckle or a wry grin is waiting on every page, if not each paragraph. It’s the kind of humor that builds gradually, that sneaks up on you with such stealth that you hardly even realize what a good time you’re having until it’s all over. By the end of Farewell, My Subaru you can think of nothing that would seem like more fun than hanging out at Fine’s ranch, vainly striving to keep his goats from eating the rose bushes. Think James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small — updated as appropriate for the iPod generation.