Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather Search Amazon for other books by or about Willa Cather. Rating: Reviewed by: Scott Hirsch

Often considered one of Willa Cather's finest novels, Death Comes for the Archbishop is a series of sparsely powerful snapshots in time that portray the awkward and slow transition of New Mexico from backward Mexican province to . . . well . . . a backward U.S. state. Historically accurate and set in the American Southwest in the mid to late 1800s, Archbishop shows us a different time in American history--a time when the Church was sometimes the only link that tied the wild frontier to the slow, but steady, modernization that built this country. Cather's wisely chosen guides for the narrative are two French priests whose missionary zeal is kept in check only by their understanding of indelibility of local Mexican and Native American spirituality. Although their progress in building a traditional Catholic church is slow, the process of growth and learning in their lives closely mirrors the growth of stronger congregations throughout their expanding diocese.

As if the subject matter weren't interesting enough, the true beauty of this novel is in Cather's narrative style. Both a journalist and a poet by trade, Cather has the unique ability to illustrate complex scenery, demonstrate depths of emotion, and almost set words to music as she describes the failures and triumphs of her main characters. Individual chapters could almost be read as prose-poems, each succinctly capturing a moment of being or one of life's lessons for the characters involved. Cather truly deserves her place as one of the 20th century's finest American authors. Archbishop is as much a must- read for the artistic aesthete, as it is for those interested in the birth of our nation in the American Southwest.