(FORTUNE Magazine) – Thomas Eidson is the envy of frustrated novelists with corporate day jobs everywhere. As Fidelity's director of corporate affairs, Eidson is responsible for telling Fidelity's story to the world. But the son of a Kansas wheat farmer and descendant of cattle ranchers is also the author of four novels set in the Old West. His first book, St. Agnes' Stand, which in 1994 won both the Best First Novel and Novel of the Year awards from the Western Writers' Association, is currently under option from Miramax. Eidson, who is now penning his fifth tome, talked to FORTUNE about a ransom plot, defending the Catholic Church, and Tommy Lee Jones.

Q: Why write Westerns?

A: I always had a great love of that period and of the stories my grandparents told. Since there was a sense of morality back then--everything was black and white--it's very easy to tell a morality tale. The problem is that [Westerns have] become a worn-out, hackneyed genre in most people's eyes. All you have to do to destroy a novel is put a Western cover on it.

Q: What is St. Agnes' Stand about?

A: It's the story of three nuns who go to Mexico to ransom some American kids. They are bringing them back across the border and get ambushed by Apaches.

Saint Agnes prays to God for someone to save them, and out of West Texas with a lynch mob on his tail comes Nat Swanson. She thinks he's sent from heaven. He knows he can't get the kids out, so the question is, "What do you do? Do you leave, or stay and die?" It's really a story of how far will someone go for someone else.

Q: As the former CEO of public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, you know a thing or two about moral binds, no?

A: Oh, boy. I was CEO when we defended the Catholic Church in the abortion issue and the government of Kuwait during the Gulf war. There are so many gray areas in life.

Q: How do you feel about the term "flack"?

A: It's indicative of the disrespect that the PR industry is held in by journalists. And part of it is the industry's own fault. But I do think the term is falling out of usage.

Q: Any advice for all the aspiring novelists trapped in desk jobs?

A: Writing is not the great mystery or artistic endeavor [that people think]. If you have a story to tell and it's a good story, somebody's hungry for it.

Q: So has corporate life convinced you that Nat Swanson's world is dead?

A: In a funny way, we vacillate. I think his world died, but we were pulled together by Sept. 11 and now are seeing much more of a black-and-white world.

Q: Any thoughts on whom you would cast as Nat in the movie?

A: Tommy Lee Jones. He's got that rough goodness about him. For Saint Agnes my own feeling would be Anne Bancroft, but they have talked about Judi Dench.

Q: So you're already a PR man, a novelist...what's next?

A: I would like to get a farm on the Maine coast. I like to ride horses, and I think I'm the only guy you've ever heard of who likes chickens.