Editing Frederick Buechner (section)

=== Later novels: ''The Book of Bebb'', ''Godric'', ''Brendan'' ===
Concurrent with Buechner's delivery of the Noble Lectures, he developed the most significant character of his later career, [[Leo Bebb]].

''[[The Book of Bebb]]'' tetralogy proved to be one of Buechner's most well-known works. Published in the years from 1972 to 1977, it brought Buechner to a much wider audience, and gained him very positive reviews (''[[Lion Country]]'', the first book in the series, was a finalist for the [[National Book Award]] in 1971). Of writing the series, Buechner says: "I had never known a man like Leo Bebb and was in most ways quite unlike him myself, but despite that, there was very little I had to do by way of consciously, purposefully inventing him. He came, unexpected and unbidden, from a part of myself no less mysterious and inaccessible than the part where dreams come from; and little by little there came with him a whole world of people and places that was as heretofore unknown to me as Bebb was himself."<ref>Buechner, Frederick (1982). ''Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation''. HarperSanFrancisco. p. 97. {{ISBN|9780061974533}}</ref> In this series, Buechner experimented for the first time with first-person narrative, and discovered that this, too, opened new doors. His next work, [[Godric (novel)|''Godric'']], published in 1980, was nominated for the [[Pulitzer Prize]]. The novel, a historical fiction, is written in the first person from the perspective of [[Godric of Finchale|Saint Godric of Finchale]], a 12th-century English hermit.

''Brendan'' (1987), a work of historical fiction like ''Godric'', draws from the life of the 6th-century [[Irish monk]] [[Brendan the Navigator|Saint Brendan the Navigator]].  Experimenting further with the narrative technique Buechner employed to such dramatic effect in ''Godric'', ''Brendan'' interweaves history and legend in an evocative portrayal of the sixth-century [[Irish saint]] as seen through the eyes of Finn, his childhood friend and loyal follower. Buechner's colorful recreation of the [[Celts|Celtic]] world of fifteen hundred years ago earned him the [[Christianity]] and Literature Belles Lettres Prize in 1987.