User:Ticvoria/St. Agnes' Stand

The first novel published by Thomas Eidson, American author. His books are said to originate with a family tradition of oral storytelling. Other books by the same author include The Last Ride and All God's Children.

This story tells of a six-day ambush in the New Mexico desert during the mid-19th century.

There are three main protagonists: Sister St Agnes, who led a small group of nuns to redeem American children captured by Comanche and then ransomed by Mexicans; Locan, war chief and leader of the Apache raiders who ambushed the nuns and children as they returned home; and Nat Swanson, a loner who stumbles across the ambush site whilst fleeing pursuit tracking him from Texas.

The focus of the story is upon the struggle for courage, belief and escape faced by each of these characters.

Sister St Agnes’ faith in God is challenged by His apparent provision of delivery in the person of Nat Swanson – a man who is willing to murder Apache braves and is convinced that his arrival was nothing more than a mistake. Meanwhile Locan faces repeated failure in his attempts to end the ambush. Whatever he does fails and he begins to suspect that the magic of the “black robes” – nuns – is too powerful for his own spirits. If he cannot be seen to win the situation his reputation amongst his own people will be lost.

The writing is spare and concise, detailing the natural and man-made brutalities of the ambush without unnecessary embellishment. This makes for a raw and sometimes shocking story set in a lovingly described, harsh but beautiful environment.

The book was critically praised by The Times Literary Supplement and the Irish Times on first publication in 1994. However these sources cannot be verified online, and have therefore not been quoted, as the archives for each publication do not go back as far as the 1990s. The original paperback was published by Penguin Books, later editions by HarperCollins Publishers. However the book is currently out of print (July 2008). Used copies are still for sale.