Death Comes for the Archbishop

As is often true of tales set in the West or Southwest, the landscape in Willa Carter's Santa Fé and surrounding areas takes on the prominence of a main character in her book, Death Comes for the Archbishop. (She calls it a narrative rather than a novel.)

I took a detour after finishing vol. 3 in Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought, The Rhetoric of Fiction (which explores all the ways a “voice” in narrative persuades), and Anatomy of Criticism (how we assess fiction), to return to a novel on my reading list. Such a welcome change! Switching from non-fiction to fiction would have been great enough. But to read a Cather story--even better. One of the great discoveries in my PhD reading adventures has been finding Willa Cather.

This particular work showed up on my reading list because I intend to relate my dissertation to writing historical fiction. And Death for the Archbishop is based on two real-life French Catholic priests sent to the Great Southwest in the mid-1800s. Written in 1927, the book reflects Cather’s own experiences in the Southwest, fully engaging her readers’ senses. You can taste the dry air, smell the desert, and see her purple mountains turn to gold as the sun sets. You can also feel a non-Catholic's respect for a simple life of devotion.

This particular version of the book included a wonderful essay by Cather herself about what inspired her to write the book and how she viewed her accomplishment. Five stars.