The review of this book in a scholarly journal can be questioned, but this does not prevent the book from being a refreshing sortie into the venerable traditions and legends of a New Mexico that exists largely in the minds of romanticists. Sister Mary Jean, a devout but far from stuffy Dominican Sister living in California, came into contact with Jaime Valdez, an aging Apache whose great love for New Mexico was matched only by his ability to transmit this fervor to the adventurous sister.
Based on the advantage of her aboriginal contact, who was reputedly a grandson of Gerónimo, and armed with a bevy of names of Jaime’s friends and relatives, Sister Mary set out in company with Sister Christine to write a story of New Mexico—of its legends, its natives, and of the faith of its inhabitants. First in Albuquerque, then at Santa Fe, Bernalillo and Sandia Pueblo, all of her “contacts” seemed to have either died or existed as figments of the fertile imagination of her enthusiastic informant. As her house of cards crumbled, Sister Mary Jean felt that she was destined to find “Never the golden city where the radiant people meet, But the dolorous town where the mourners are going about in the street.”
Soon this initial opinion changed, the Land of Enchantment had its effect, and Sister Mary Jean concludes that perhaps Jaime’s fabrications had been for the purpose of introducing her to a land where “even the dubious doings of time cannot steal away the peace of eternity that lies upon the place.”
