The Pugilist's Wife is a novel written by American author David Armand

David Armand (author)

David Armand is an American novelist. He has worked as a drywall hanger, a draftsman, and as a press operator in a flag printing factory. He now teaches at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he also serves as assistant editor for Louisiana Literature. In 2003, he received the D Vickers Award...

. It employs a number of narrative styles, and is particularly influenced by the work of John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...

, Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

, William Faulkner

William Faulkner

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...

, and Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...

. The Pugilist's Wife tells the story of Magdalene Tucker, a jilted woman who takes in a drifter during one of Sun, Louisiana’s worst recorded droughts. When the townspeople find out about this, they decide to lead a sort of crusade to Magdalene’s farm in order to put an end to Magdalene’s and this man’s sins, thinking them the sole cause of the town’s plight. But no one can predict that this convergence upon Magdalene’s land will turn violent, resulting in a brutal and bloody climax, where chance and coincidence take a back seat to love, honor, revenge, and pride.

Of the novel, author Tim Gautreaux

Tim Gautreaux

Timothy Martin Gautreaux is a novelist and short story writer who lives in Hammond, Louisiana, where he is Writer in Residence at Southeastern Louisiana University....

 says: "The Pugilist’s Wife is a powerful Southern brew of violence and religion. The writing is intense, fast-paced, linguistically rich, well-crafted and ultimately riveting."

Skip Horack

Skip Horack

-Personal Life/Education:He was raised in Covington, Louisiana where he attended St. Paul's School.Horack holds a B.A. in English and a J.D. from Florida State University...

, author of the critically acclaimed The Eden Hunter states that “David Armand’s beautiful, unflinching debut novel is a masterfully spun yarn of tragedy, sin, and redemption that builds to a truly unforgettable climax. The Pugilist’s Wife is a remarkable achievement, as well as the announcement of a standout new voice.”

The Pugilist's Wife was named the winner of the 2010 George Garrett

George Garrett (poet)

George Palmer Garrett. was an American poet and novelist. He was the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2002 to 2006. His novels include The Finished Man, Double Vision, and the Elizabethan Trilogy, composed of Death of the Fox, The Succession, and Entered from the Sun...

Fiction Prize and will be released fall 2011 by Texas Review Press, a member of the Texas A & M University Press Consortium.