Tewksbury Public Library

The Iliad of Geronimo, a song of blood and fire : a novel, W. Michael Farmer

eng

no index present

fiction

The Iliad of Geronimo

1264175436

W. Michael Farmer

Five Star frontier fiction

a song of blood and fire : a novel

"The story of the last ten years of Geronimo's wars mirrors the rage, battles, and deception told in Homer's Iliad, the story of the ten-year Greek and Trojan War. The Iliad of Geronimo begins in 1877, ten years before Geronimo's surrender with him being hauled four hundred miles in chains to the San Carlos Reservation guardhouse, there to await hanging in Tucson. Almost miraculously, Geronimo escaped hanging and lived peacefully for a time on the San Carlos Reservation. Geronimo and his followers escaped reservations three times during the nearly ten years of Geronimo's Iliad. After leaving the reservations, the Apaches raided and made war from their great Troy-like fortress, the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico. Chiricahua Apache heroes, like their Greek and Trojan counterparts, were great warriors, their names filling the Americans and Mexicans with terror--Naiche, Loco, Chihuahua, Nana, Jelikinne, Ulzana, Kaytenne, Chato--and the most feared--Geronimo. The Iliad of Geronimo, like Homer's Iliad, is an epic story, told through Geronimo's eyes, of the ten years of blood and fire he wrought on his enemies when most of his people wanted peace with the Americans and the Mexicans. Only after General Miles offered terms that allowed Geronimo and his warriors to see their families was their war ended. The terms were like a Trojan horse, filled with lies instead of warriors, lies that once accepted allowed no escape for men who didn't suffer fools gladly and as warriors couldn't be broken"--, Provided by publisher