Death Comes for the Archbishop
by Willa Cather
First published 1927 · 227 pages
- Novels
- Historical fiction
- Young adult
This novel follows Father Jean Latour, a French priest sent in the mid-nineteenth century to serve as bishop in the newly American territory of New Mexico. With his old friend Father Joseph Vaillant, he travels vast distances on horse and mule, meeting Mexican villagers, Native Americans and difficult local clergy. Told in a series of linked episodes, the book is a quiet meditation on faith, friendship, landscape and the slow building of a community. It is admired for its serene style and its sense of place.
Quotes
Where there is great love there are always miracles.
That irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand.
The miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.