A Reassessment of Fray Angelico Chavez's Fiction

Abstract

Fray Angelico Chavez has had a long and remarkably distinguished career as a man of letters. A retired Franciscan now in his seventies, Chavez has proven himself a capable historian and scholar with Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period (1954), Archives of the Santa Fe Archdiocese (1957), Coronado's Friars (1968), My Penitente Land (1974), and most recently, But Time and Chance: The Story of Padre Martinez of Taos (1981). Over a period of over forty years, Chavez has published five volumes of poetry, and one volume, The Virgin of Port Lligat, was recognized as a very commendable achievement by T. S. Eliot.1 During these prolific decades, he has also written a good deal of short fiction. Many of Chavez's stories appear in two collections New Mexico Triptych (1940) and From an Altar Screen: Tales from New Mexico (1957). Other stories remain hidden away in various journals, as well as church magazines such as the St. Anthony Messenger and Sodalist where Chavez published regularly in the thirties and forties. In addition to these publications, there is a wealth of miscellaneous material historical articles, biographical profiles, contributions to other books, scores of book reviewsfor which Chavez deserves credit.2