Death Comes for the Archbishop (Willa Cather)

Death Comes for the Archbisop was first published in 1927, which is the year of my mother's birth. Not that this is significant to anyone else, but I did find myself conjuring the decade when my dear Irish mother and Cather's novelization of two French priests in the American Southwest first arrived in our midst. There is much to reflect upon in this novel: the natural beauties of New Mexico, the mysteries of the Catholic faith, the array of personalities, some admirable and others wayward, that make up the culture of the citizens and the clergy who populate its pages. Cather writes with a brushstroke - in her hand, the landscape and its inhabitants bec0me imminently present. Death Comes for the Archbishop is also the story of the enduring friendship between the Archbishop, Father Jean Latour and his assistant, Father Vaillant, who first met as schoolboys and together shared a lifelong pilgrimmage as missionaries in a foreign land.