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Death Comes for the Archbishop ()


The Image Top 100 Books of the Century

Father Jean Marie Latour comes to New Mexico in 1851 to reestablish the Church's control over the Catholic community in America's newly acquired South West.   Over the next forty years, he & his cohorts battle the landscape, corruption and indifference to restore the place of the Church in the lives of the local Indians, Mexicans and Americans.

This is a spare & simple story, which is both a strength and a weakness.  Oddly missing from the tale are God and Jesus Christ.  We admire the faith that sustains the priests in their work, but what is it that they have faith in?  Why does this faith have the power to maintain them against all hardships?

Because these questions remain unasked, let alone unanswered, the book is ultimately unsatisfying.

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (C)


Websites:

Willa Cather Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Willa Cather
    -STORY OF THE WEEK: The Joy of Nelly Deane Willa Cather (1873–1947) (Library of America)
    -ETEXT: “The Bookkeeper’s Wife,” Willa Cather (Library of America)
    -PODCAST: Good Story 274: Death Comes to the Archbishop (A Good Story is Hard to Find, 1/25/22)
    -ESSAY: Willa Cather in the Desert: Where She Learned What Truly Mattered and Found Material for The Song of the Lark: Walnut Canyon in Arizona was the inspiration for key scenes in Cather's 1915 novel. (Mark Athitakis, July/August 2015, Humanities)
    -ESSAY: No Stage Catholics: On Willa Cather. (Robert Wyllie, 8/02/24, The Lamp)
    -ESSAY: Willa Cather’s New York: The Nebraskan writer had a gift for finding stillness in the swirl of the city. (Carol Iannone, August 5, 2024, Modern Age)
    -ESSAY: The Permanence of Humanism (Bradley J. Birzer, May 1, 2017, Modern Age)
    -ESSAY: Never-Ending Nostalgia: Who and What Inspired Willa Cather: Benjamin Taylor on the Early Years of America's Chronicler of the Great Plains (Benjamin Taylor, November 15, 2023, LitHub)
    -ESSAY: Did Truman Capote plagiarize Breakfast at Tiffany’s from Willa Cather? (Janet Manley, March 28, 2023, LitHub)
    -ESSAY: Looking at Willa Cather’s Lesbian Partnership and Domestic World: The Lesser-Told Story of Cather and Edith Lewis (Melissa Homestead, May 18, 2022, Lit Hub)
    -ESSAY: Finding Inspiration in Willa Cather’s Belief in the Necessity of Art: Ladette Randolph on Cather’s Romanticized Plots and Fierce Intelligence (Ladette Randolph, March 7, 2022, LitHub)
    -ARCHIVES: Willa Cather (New Criterion)
    -REVIEW: of O, Pioneers by Willa Cather (The Complete Review)
    -REVIEW: of Chasing Bright Medusas: A Life of Willa Cather by Benjamin Taylor (Anne Matthews, American Scholar)
    -REVIEW: of Chasing Bright Medusas (Joseph Epstein, Free Beacon)
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Book-related and General Links:
   
-Literary Research Guide: Willa Cather (1873 - 1947)
    -ESSAY: Which authors, or books, do not enjoy the standing they deserve? Continuing our series on underrated reputations, the novelist Joyce Carol Oates nominates Willa Cather (Books Online, UK Telegraph)
    -ESSAY : Willa Cather’s Archbishop : Maria Stella Ceplecha tells the story of Jean Baptiste Lamy, the real-life prelate who provided the inspiration for Death Comes to the Archbishop (Crisis)
    -READING GROUP GUIDE : My Antonia by Willa Cather (Random House)
    -REVIEW : of Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism by Joan Acocella (Terry Castle, London Review of Books)
    -ESSAY: Junípero Serra and the Founding of the West (PATRICK M. LAURENCE, 7/08/20, Crisis)
    -ESSAY: O Pioneers! (Joseph Pearce, November 24th, 2024, Imaginative Conservative)
    -ESSAY: The Black Legend Lives: ‘Escalante’s Dream’ (Jeremy Beer,July 1, 2020, Commonweal)