Author Talk: Garrett Peck

Join Pikes Peak Library District as we celebrate National Reading Month and welcome author and historian Garrett Peck to talk about his new book The Bright Edges of the World. Following the talk, Peck will be available for audience questions and a book signing.

This program is being offered to commemorate the Colorado 150 and US 250 anniversaries.  

Register in advance to let us know you will be attending.

About the 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.

About the author:

Garrett Peck is an author, historian, and tour guide in Santa Fe, specializing in adventure travel and historic and cultural interpretation. The author of nine books about American history, Garrett’s latest is The Bright Edges of the World: Willa Cather and Her Archbishop (University of New Mexico Press). The book explores Cather’s travels to the Southwest that inspired her to write her “best book” (her words), Death Comes for the Archbishop. Garrett has lectured for the Library of Congress, the National Archives, Smithsonian Associates, historical societies, and literary clubs. A native Californian, he graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and George Washington University and is a U.S. Army veteran. www.garrettpeck.com