Death Comes for the Archbishop

By: Willa Cather

Narrated by: David Ackroyd

Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

From one of the most highly acclaimed novelists of the twentieth century—"a truly remarkable book" (The New York Times), an epic—almost mythic—story of a single human life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.

In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, all the while contending with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Out of these events, Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

©2014 Willa Cather (P)2016 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“A truly remarkable book . . . Soaked through and through with atmosphere . . . From the riches of her imagination and sympathy Miss Cather has distilled a very rare piece of literature. It stands out, from the very resistance it opposes to classification.” --The New York Times

"The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world as solidly as our five senses build the uiverse around us.” —Rebecca West

“[Cather’s] descriptions of the Indian mesa towns on the rock are as beautiful, as unjudging, as lucid, as her descriptions of the Bishop’s cathedral. It is an art of ‘making,’ of clear depiction—of separate objects, whose whole effect works slowly and mysteriously in the reader, and cannot be summed up. . . . Cather’s composed acceptance of mystery is a major, and rare, artistic achievement.” —from the Introduction to the Everyman's Library edition by A. S. Byatt

Simply Outstanding

In my opinion, Death Comes for the Archbishop is the best American novel ever written.

amazing classic everyone should read

Death Comes for the Archbishop is wonderful, an amazing classic everyone should read!

It's equal parts engaging drama, interesting historical fiction, and inspirational stories of people of faith. I highly recommend it! And if you are not familiar with Willa Cather (I was not until my book club did this book a couple months ago), then check her out!!

Nice Book and Eloquently Read

I loved it. I hadn't heard this book till this year, but I recommend it.

Excellent performance and unique story

This story tells about the relationship between two men who left their homeland and took their chances against great odds

Must read for anyone living in New Mexico

I love this book. It really helps me understand the complex convergence of cultures and the main character of the land. I am in awe of Cather's ability to put into words the enchantment of this region of the world.

A Sweeping Vista

Willa Cather writes like a painter; she captures the zeitgeist of the American expansion from the outside along with some of its ignoble underbelly. Cather’s characters can never die and that is why this novel is still read, taught, and enjoyed today.

An Enlightening Soft-On-The-Ears Listen

Dichotomy drawn between the Mexicans, the Natives, the spiritual, the pious, and the colonisers is graceful, oddly non-brutal, and without rancour. One is reminded of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, though only in prose, not content.

Descriptions of the landscape match the sentiments of the protagonists. Both are comfortable, yet make one feel lonesome and meditative. Though the protagonists are deeply spiritual the reader does not feel like they are being proselytised or “sold to.” This is not a novella written for god or even about god. I think it is a novella about why we search for god in places where it seems that god could not be or has never been. And though this novella is, as it’s title suggests, a book about death, it is not clear what the life of the deceased has brought about. The impact of the archbishop’s life is obfuscated - perhaps intentionally - which serves to make the reader question god, not buttress him.

-Noah Balfour
02/29/24

A story of noble simplicity

A great story of an Archbishop and his coworkers of clergy, Mexican, Native American and others who braved the Southwest, and saw the dignity of all the the people who they encountered.

Engaging and enchanting

A gripping tale for my Catholic soul but that would also hold appeal for any person of goodwill.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

This audio is superb, David Ackroyd has the perfect voice for the wonderful story told by Willa Cather.