Author Liz Prato to read from Purgatoire at Trinidad History Museum

Residents who gathered at the Trinidad History Museum heard Liz Prato read from Purgatoire, then take questions about the Italian immigrant story at the center of the book and its ties to Las Animas County. The free event ran from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the Barglow History Room at 312 E. Main St. and included a discussion, audience Q&A and a book signing. Copies were available at the museum event and in the gift store at 120 S. Chestnut St.

The setting gave the reading a stronger local pull than a standard bookstore stop. The Trinidad History Museum occupies an entire city block and includes the Bloom Mansion, the Baca House and the Barglow Building, all part of Trinidad’s historic district. Its exhibits focus on Southern Colorado and local history, and the Barglow Building, built in 1906, once served as a medical office and family apartment. The museum’s location inside the El Corazon de Trinidad National Historic District linked the evening directly to the city’s long commercial and mining-era past.

That fit the subject matter of Purgatoire, which is based on Prato’s ancestors and centers on an Italian immigrant family in southern Colorado. Publisher copy says the novel begins in 1910, when Sabé Parella travels from northern Italy to southern Colorado to join her husband, who had gone ahead to work in the coal mines. The story’s name also carries local weight in Trinidad, where the Purgatoire River and Purgatoire Valley are part of the region’s geography and memory.

History Colorado says Italian immigrants came to Colorado in the late 1850s during the mining boom and often lived in segregated communities before contributing to railroads, mining, agriculture and local businesses. The broader Purgatoire Valley has a deeper record still, with human occupation dating back to the Paleo-Indian period and a history that includes time under Mexico from 1821 to 1848. Those layers of settlement made Prato’s reading feel especially rooted in place rather than simply literary.

The Trinidad stop was one date in a larger Purgatoire tour that began April 7 with a launch at Powell’s City of Books. Forest Avenue Press lists the book as 252 pages and says it was published April 7, 2026. For Trinidad, the museum night tied a new book to the valley’s older stories, bringing immigration history, coal country memory and downtown cultural life into the same room.