Death Comes for the Archbishop

In 1848, following the USs recent acquisition of the American Southwest from Mexico, the young bishop Father Jean Marie Latour receives instruction from the Vatican to oversee a newly created diocese in New Mexico. With his good friend Father Joseph Vaillant in tow, the pair travel through the unforgiving and seemingly-endless desert on mules in attempt to reclaim the region from corrupt priests who have taken mistresses, exhibited greed, and inflicted abuse and genocide on the Mexican and Indigenous residents. But as Father Latour spends more time in New Mexico with the people who have inhabited and influenced it for centuries, he begins to realize that the task he was sent to do is more complicated than anticipated. Rather than leave, though, Father Latour decides to stay and uphold his commitment to the Church and his faith, and gains an eye-opening perspective along the way. Written in 1927 at a time when Cather herself was expanding her own ideas of race, religion, and gender, Death Comes for the Archbishop remains a moving account of one mans physical and spiritual journey of understanding in naturalistic prose as sparse as the desert plains.

WILLA CATHER was born in Virginia in 1873, and was about nine years old when her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she worked for a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper, then moved to Pittsburgh and finally to New York City. There she joined McClures magazine. After meeting the author Sarah Orne Jewett, she decided to quit journalism and devote herself full time to fiction. Her first novel, Alexanders Bridge, appeared in 1912, but her place in American literature was established with her first Nebraska novel, O Pioneers!, published in 1913, followed by her most famous pioneer novel, My Antonia, in 1918. In 1922 she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours. Her other novels include Death Comes for the Archbishop, Shadows on the Rock, The Song of the Lark, The Professor s House, My Mortal Enemy, and Lucy Gayheart. She died in 1947.

• Online Book Clubs is a fun way to discover and read books on your web browser, smartphone or tablet.
• Subscribe to the clubs for free to get access to the first few chapters of a new book. Receive a 5-minute read daily for 5 days.
• Author Buzz and Kids Buzz: exclusive weekly service featuring 4-5 authors, up close and personal. Authors offer free signed copies of their books and dozens of other free giveaways every week.