This book is worth reading for a number of reasons, as long as one realizes that it has some troubling limitations as a historical account.

The book tells the story of two catholic missionaries who have been assigned to the territory recently taken from Mexico at the end of the Mexican American War and later the land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase. The Church believed that Catholicism in the area had fallen into corruption in the many years since the Spanish missionaries had originally invaded the area. Over decades the two missionaries, Bishop Letour and Father Vaillant, attempt to convert American Indians and restore the Catholic Church for the Mexicans. The book is loosely based on the life of Archbishop Lamy and contains historical “cameos” by characters such as Pope Gregory XVI, Kit Carson, and Navajo leader Manuelito (Ashkii Diyinii). It also makes brief references to events such as the Taos rebellion and the Long Walk of the Navaho. I was glad that I had recently read Manifest Destinies: the Making of the Mexican American Race recently so I had more knowledge of that very misunderstood time and place.

I enjoyed Cather’s writing style. The pace is slow yet compelling and easy to read yet evocative. The book is essentially a series of connected stories, mostly tales of priests with historical events happening as a distant backdrop. At times Cather starts a section by giving away the “end” of a particular story, and then unspools the story slowly over the course of that section (and, in a larger sense she does this with the title of the book as well). There is a sort of rhythm to the book that I got caught up in, despite the lack of a strong narrative arc or compelling drama.

The troubling aspects of the book are in the stereotypic ways that people, such as American Indians and Mexicans, are sometimes portrayed. Cather wrote this book during a time of strong American interest in the Southwest, and she sometimes writes like a fascinated and sympathetic white tourist. Mexicans are at times portrayed as childish, Indians as Noble Savages slowly being erased from the world, and priests in either monsters or saintly. Still, if one approaches the book with an open eye for the context of the era Cather wrote in, there is much interesting discussion that can be brought forth about race relations in the New Mexico Territory, the idea of the “immigrant”, nostalgia and tradition, “nature” and progress, friendship and home. As the book goes on, the stories of American Indians improve... perhaps Letour (or Cather) has begun to have a deeper view of history and the Navajo, for example, are portrayed in a way which gives them some agency and a path into the present. Overall I found this a fascinating read.