Showing results for title "Death Comes for the Archbishop", by author "Willa Cather" in Genre Fiction

Inspired by real-life characters and events, Willa Cather’s historical novel follows the committed efforts of two friends, Bishop Jean Marie Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant, to establish a diocese in the newly acquired US territory of New Mexico. Their arduous and picaresque journey is set against a gorgeous landscape of mesas, canyons, and arroyos inhabited by the Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo people, the place becoming almost another character itself.

"Death Comes for the Archbishop" is a masterful work of historical fiction by Willa Cather. Set in the American Southwest in the mid-19th century, the novel tells the story of a young French priest who is sent to establish a Catholic diocese in a rugged and unfamiliar land. Through his encounters with the indigenous people and his fellow settlers, the priest comes to understand the complexities and beauty of the human spirit.

In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour becomes the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. While the area is American by law, it's still Mexican and Indian by custom and belief. During the years that follow, Latour tirelessly but gently spreads his faith while facing external and internal obstacles. Loosely based on the life of Jean-Baptiste Lamy and the construction of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, this novel chronicles the events that occur after the capture of the southwest by American forces during the Mexican-American war.

In the late 1800's, Bishop Jean Marie Latour and Vicar Joseph Vaillant are assigned to travel to the newly founded territory of New Mexico in order to establish a religious diocese there. Their year-long journey exposes them to many hardships and dangers. It also brings them in contact with a variety of individuals–priests (both good and bad), poor people who live on the edge of starvation and one Kit Carson.

Seen through the eyes of a French Catholic missionary, Death Comes for the Archbishop is a tale about the development of the 19th-century American Southwest as the Indians and Spanish deal with each other and the arriving Americans.