The Apprenticeship of Nigel Blackthorn is a coming-of-age story set in the American west of 1853. The story relates the adventures of a twelve-year-old English boy whose missionary parents came to the prairie to convert the wild heathens to the way of Christ.

Marauding Comanches slaughtered Reverend John Blackthorn and his family, the pilgrims who came to convert them. The Reverend’s twelve-year-old son, Nigel, survived by hiding in a hollow tree. A muleskinner, and defrocked Jesuit priest, Pascal LeBrun, finds the lad, lost and alone. Plump, lazy, spoiled Nigel enters an unwelcome new world—work or starve. He finds English is not the primary language, and survival is the only game on the prairie. When the mule train reaches the first town, Pascal gives Nigel a choice, be sent to the state orphanage or continue as Pascal’s apprentice for a piddling salary. Years later Nigel wondered if the orphanage might have been easier?