Literary Fiction · LightA charismatic priest in a stagnant order is sent from Chicago to a run-down Minnesota retreat house
Morte d'Urban
by J. F. Powers
A charismatic priest is sent to a failing retreat house in Minnesota and sets out to improve it
Father Urban Roche is a charismatic, energetic priest and a gifted public speaker in the fictional Clementine religious order. He finds his order stagnant and resistant to change. His superior sends him from Chicago to a failing retreat house in rural Minnesota, where he sets out to improve the facilities and the local church. Doubleday published it in 1962, and the New York Review of Books reissued it in 2000.
More about this book
Who
Father Urban Roche, a priest of the fictional Clementine order.
World
Chicago, then a run-down retreat house in rural Minnesota.
What makes it different
It treats the life of a religious order with wit, and its target is institutional complacency.
Feel
Witty and sharp. It won the 1963 National Book Award for Fiction.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- Morte d'UrbanWikipedia