Guitars and Adobes, and the Uncollected Stories of Fray Angélico Chávez:

by Angélico Chávez, McCracken Ellen (Editor), Ellen McCracken (Editor)

Fray Angélico Chávez [born Manuel Ezequiel Chávez] (1910–1996) was one of New Mexico's foremost writers and intellectuals, with hundreds of poems, articles, plays, stories, and twenty-four books to his credit. In 1924, at the age of fourteen, he traveled from northern New Mexico to Ohio to study and train in the Franciscan Order, becoming the first native New Mexican to be ordained a Franciscan priest. This rare collection of writings combines Chávez’s early fiction with his little-known novel Guitars and Adobes, originally published in 1931–32 in serialized form. The novel presents an alternative Hispano vision to Willa Cather’s famed Death Comes for the Archbishop. In both his writing and his art, this towering man of letters and the arts drew from his Catholic beliefs, his identity as a Hispano, and a rich well of creativity. A member of the Santa Fe writers’ group that included luminary figures such as D. H. Lawrence, Willa Cather, Alice Corbin, Mary Austin, and Witter Bynner, Chávez exchanged influence with his contemporaries during the heady times of the Santa Fe writer’s era of the ’20s and ’30s. Ellen McCracken, Chávez’s biographer and an authority on his literary legacy, introduces the material with an essay that provides considerable insight into Chávez's creative and spiritual paths. Included in this collection are original lithographs made by noted New Mexico artist Gerald Cassidy and drawings by Chávez to illustrate the stories.

202 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Fray Angélico Chávez (1910-1996) was an American Franciscan Priest, historian, author, poet and painter. Born the first of 10 children he attended public schools in Mora. At the age of 14, Chávez was admitted to St. Francis Seminary in Ohio.

While at the seminary, Chávez endeavored to improve his English (his second language) through a study of the classic literature of the language. He began writing fiction, essays, and other works at this time, several of which were published in the Brown and White, the student magazine he later edited.

In 1929, he officially became a novice and received the order's habit. Due to his promise as a visual artist, was given the religious name Frater Angélico after the Florentine painter Fra Angelico. He continued his studies in Detroit, graduating in 1933. He studied for four more years before being ordained at Saint Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, the first native New Mexican Franciscan.

He was assigned to the parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Peña Blanca and its missions in Jémez Pueblo and Los Cerrillos.

After a career in the military during WWII and through the Korean War, Chávez was appointed archivist of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and undertook the cataloguing and translation of its Spanish archives. This work provided new primary sources that allowed for a reevaluation of the history of New Mexico. He wrote the definitive work on the families of New Mexico, as well as many other works of history, some of which is considered revisionist.

He also wrote poetry, short stories and novels, including his 1974 book “My Penitente Land: Reflections on Spanish New Mexico.” Since his fictional works center on the history and culture of the Hispanic people of New Mexico, he is sometimes regarded as "the father of Chicano literature".

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Guitars and Adobes", was written in the 1930's, copyright renewal in 2009., By Fray Angelico Chavez, a Franciscan Friar legendary in New Mexico. The title goes to his novel, first part of the book, and the rest is short stories. As a writer, Chaves is very good and insightful on history and culture of Hispanic New Mexico. I've read him for my own research. The novel, featuring a haunted, guitar is a good window into the northern New Mexico culture in which both the author and I were raised. The short stories don't stand up to the novel, or his scholarly work. As a writer of short stories, he is better as a historian, and I'll continue to laud that,

[Mary Louise Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angelico Chavez, a priest/author, was a Renaissance man of New Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s. He painted, wrote plays, articles, fiction and non-fiction books, including the very famous reference work on Hispanic New Mexican genealogy.

This novel, originally published in 1931-1932 in serialized form, and other collections in this book are some of Fray Anglico's first attempts at fictional writing when he was studying at the seminary on the east coast, far from his New Mexican home.

The author was a contemporary of Willa Cather, D.H. Lawrence and other writers who lived in New Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s but he wrote authentically of and from his Hispanic identity.