Starting with the novels \u201cThe Return of Ansel Gibbs\u201d (1958), which questioned the human values of a former statesman recalled to Washington for a cabinet post, and \u201cThe Final Beast\u201d (1965), which linked a young widowed minister to a woman in a small-town scandal, Mr. Buechner\u2019s writing took on new theological dimensions, finding divinity in everyday life.<\/p>\n
In a series of autobiographies \u2014 \u201cThe Sacred Journey\u201d (1982), \u201cNow and Then\u201d (1983), \u201cTelling Secrets\u201d (1991) and \u201cThe Eyes of the Heart\u201d (1999) \u2014 Mr. Buechner examined his relationship with his deceased parents and his insights gained from therapy sessions. He explained his intention in an introduction to the first volume:<\/p>\n
\u201cMore as a novelist than as a theologian, more concretely than abstractly, I determined to try to describe my own life as evocatively and candidly as I could in the hope that such glimmers of theological truth as I believed I had glimpsed in it would shine through my description more or less on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics sometimes accused Mr. Buechner of moralizing. But more typical was Cecelia Holland, in The Washington Post, on his novel \u201cBrendan\u201d (1987), about an Irish saint whose sixth-century voyages were likened to those of Sinbad. \u201cIn our own time,\u201d she wrote, \u201cwhen religion is debased, an electronic game show, an insult to the thirsty soul, Buechner\u2019s novel proves again the power of faith, to lift us up, to hold us straight, to send us on again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n The author of this beautiful obit of a great writer joined the Times over 60 years ago: \u201cRobert D. McFadden is a senior writer on the Obituaries desk. He joined The Times in May 1961\u201d https:\/\/t.co\/aSpKSwQWuT<\/a><\/p>\n — David Brooks (@nytdavidbrooks) August 16, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n