“Stephen March takes a difficult theme and setting and makes it 
work brilliantly. These people come right off the page with a 
presence so realistic, you can almost smell them! An endearing
and brutally honest narrator hosts this ribald romp through the 
backwoods of the upper South and provides us with as unique and 
challenging a set of characters ever to crawl out of the backseat of 
an abandoned Ford Fairlane with a jaw full of snuff and a gut full of 
cheap wine. The twisting and turning plot never drifts into cliché or 
offers ever a whiff of predictability. This is just plain fun, but with a 
serious tone, sometimes even warm and always genuine. There’s a 
marvelous sense of the ironic informing the whole, and, as is 
always the case when good triumphs over evil, there’s a grin at the 
end.”—Clay Reynolds, Series Judge

    “The characters who populate the taut universe of Armadillo skate 
on the wobbly edge of the abyss. They are forced to invent salvation
for themselves and must achieve it however they can. Stephen
March shows us that hope is possible even in an inferno of desolation.
His novel is as stark as a desert landscape—and presents the same
kind of beauty. It is truthful and wounding. It is pitiless. It is a
triumph.”—Fred Chappell
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STEPHEN MARCH grew up mostly in Tennessee, West Virginia, 
and North Carolina. His short stories have been published in New 
Orleans Review, Carolina Quarterly, Tampa Review, Seattle 
Review, William and Mary Review and Appalachian Heritage, 
among others. He is currently an English professor at Elizabeth
City State University in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.