NYRB Classics discussion

Morte D'Urban



Publication Date: May 31, 2000
Pages: 360
Introduction by Elizabeth Hardwick.
Originally published in 1962.
Winner of the 1963 National Book Award for Fiction.

The hero of J.F. Powers’s comic masterpiece is Father Urban, a man of the cloth who is also a man of the world. Charming, with an expansive vision of the spiritual life and a high tolerance for moral ambiguity, Urban enjoys a national reputation as a speaker on the religious circuit and has big plans for the future. But then the provincial head of his dowdy religious order banishes him to a retreat house in the Minnesota hinterlands. Father Urban soon bounces back, carrying God’s word with undaunted enthusiasm through the golf courses, fishing lodges, and backyard barbecues of his new turf. Yet even as he triumphs his tribulations mount, and in the end his greatest success proves a setback from which he cannot recover.

First published in 1962, Morte D’Urban has been praised by writers as various as Gore Vidal, William Gass, Mary Gordon, and Philip Roth. This beautifully observed, often hilarious tale of a most unlikely Knight of Faith is among the finest achievements of an author whose singular vision assures him a permanent place in American literature.

I'm in the middle of this one right now and I gotta say it is great. I will be reading more of this author!

I was just going through my collection of NYRB Classics today and pulled down the two Powers books I have of the three they've published. I still haven't read them! I know I need to though, particularly now that I've had two reminders in one day!

Morte D’Urban is fantastic! Definitely dive into that one. It surprises you how a novel about priests can feel so current and aligned with the secular world. It’s a great book about there drudgery of work and heading into the office every day.

I have the collected short stories, but have not yet delved in.

Really loved this and I’m looking forward to his other novel and his stories. Anyone read them?

Based on Jonathan Yardley's recommendation in Second Reading: Notable and Neglected Books Revisited, I bought this.

Also related to the broad topic of Catholics in America, (and recommended by Yardley), I got The Damnation of Theron Ware.

Both sound interesting, but it may be awhile before I take them up.

I did also end up reading his Wheat that Springeth Green which I loved. Reminded me much of The Power and the Glory.