Author and historian Garrett Peck traces Willa Cather’s adventures in the Southwest and how they influenced her best book.
Six months before she died, Willa Cather called her 1927 novel Death Comes for the Archbishop her “best book.” The Atlantic magazine concurred, including Archbishop on its Great American Novels list in 2024. A perennial favorite for people who love New Mexico, the novel tells an unusual story of two French priests and best friends serving on the American frontier before the arrival of the railroad. This Western work of fiction is loosely based on two historical figures, Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Bishop Joseph Machebeuf.
In The Bright Edges of the World, Garrett Peck explores how Cather’s travels to the Southwest inspired her writing. She visited the Southwest six times between 1912 and 1926, and from these journeys came three novels, the last of which was Death Comes for the Archbishop. Through Cather’s letters, postcards, articles, and interviews, Peck traces how integral travel was to Cather’s imagination while highlighting the vital contribution that Cather’s longtime partner, Edith Lewis, made to the story. The Bright Edges of the World is richly illustrated to highlight Cather and Lewis’s extensive Southwestern adventures.
Though Archbishop is a work of fiction, Peck explores how Cather wove some of the most legendary people in New Mexican history into her novel, such as Archbishop Lamy, Kit Carson, and Padre Antonio José Martínez, while subtly hinting toward the complexity of Pueblo Indian and Navajo (Diné) faith. Archbishop is a multicultural novel that reflects the diversity of New Mexico’s people.
Death Comes for the Archbishop remains a timeless book of friendship on the American frontier and an inspiration for people who, as Cather wrote, “have gone a-journeying in New Mexico on the trail of the Archbishop.”
Garrett Peck is an author, historian, and tour guide in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is the author of nine books focusing on American history. He leads the Willa Cather’s Santa Fe tour and many other excursions around New Mexico.
Peck will be in conversation with Bob Attardi. Bob’s career in books, music, and public programs started here in Washington, D.C. in 1986 at Olsson’s Books and Records. A few stops along the way included Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and 15 years with the National Geographic Society. Bob is currently the Director of Programs at Politics and Prose. His team creates classes, salons, bus trips, and travel opportunities for our book community. We hope that you will join us!