The Nun and the Bandit. E.L. Grant Watson.

The Nun & the Bandit.
E.L. Grant Watson.
Albatross: 1935

Another good book from Grant Watson. This one revolves around the changing relationship between a desparate man and the nun he accidentally kidnaps (she was with the girl he intended to kidnap.) The nun, Lucy, is of course beautiful, but it is not love which drives Michael; rather a combination of animal lust and revenge--revenge against God for the rotten hand he has been dealt.

Michael's tale is one of an everlasting search for meaning and escape. Lucy's tale is again a search for meaning (as, I suppose, it is for us all) and a complex one of acceptance and forgiveness. For she allows Michael to take her (in exchange for sparing the child) and she stays with him--not quite willingly, but at least passively, obediently, and even companionably.

The setting is the Australian outback, and Grant Watson once again evokes the horror close beneath it and the feeling of insignificance one feels amongst it.