Death Comes for the Archbishop

In 1851 a French priest, Jean Marie Latour, arrives in the vast territory of New Mexico, newly taken by the United States, as its first bishop, together with his old friend Father Joseph Vaillant. Over nearly forty years they travel thousands of miles on horse and mule through deserts and mountains, visiting Mexican villages, Hopi and Navajo country and the ancient pueblos, struggling with corrupt local priests and building a cathedral in Santa Fe, until the archbishop, old and at peace, prepares to die.

Willa Cather published the novel in 1927, basing her heroes on the real Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy and his vicar Joseph Machebeuf. Written in calm, luminous episodes, it is often considered her masterpiece. Worth reading alongside it: My Ántonia.