Frederick Buechner - Reviews

Reviews

"This work, filled with recollections of people close to him who have passed on to another life, features a dialogue with his grandmother. Naya, as he calls her, died in 1961 but comes into his study imaginatively for a dialogue about eternal life. When Fred asks her if she sees people she used to know, her answer proves provocative: "Words like see don't do very well on this side of things. But yes, they are here. They are part of what, ever so slowly, we move deeper and deeper toward, or into, or through—whatever the preposition is. They are part of what we begin little by little to un-derstand at last." Much else follows that will pique the inner life of readers willing to move beyond surfaces. Buechner finds in other deceased family members and friends, continuing presences that stir his imagination and induce him to revalue human experience transformed by a loving God." – Richard Griffin

"'Wishful Thinking' is a new lexicon, a dictionary for the restless believer, for the doubter, for anyone who wants to redefine or define more concretely those words that have become an integral part of our daily language—words that we use about God, the universe and, last but never least, humankind. This is Buechner's debonair definition of "doubt": "Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving." With such wit and wisdom, imagination and innovation, we are led to a fuller awareness and greater understanding of the true relevance of familiar terms to each of our own lives." – Senior Pastor Steve Petty, St. Andrew's By-the-Sea United Methodist Church, San Clemente

"Like all of Buechner's stories, this one will make you laugh and cry. You will also contemplate with wonder that, even among modern fragmented families and sin, love and grace are never far away." – Rev John Congram on The Storm

"In the hands of a less skilled writer, the use of a resurrected conversation partner might seem contrived. Here it successfully combines an intimate conversation with a hint at a revelatory vision. Buechner is neither sentimental nor detached, gloomy nor unduly optimistic. He listens to his fears, anxieties and hopes and illuminates our own experience of the death of those close to us." – David M. May on The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found

"He's sort of earthy, he writes well... What can I say? He writes these little gems and he writes these big ambitious things... The characters are good and they have distinct voices. He's good with voice... Above all else he's a novelist. He's a literary man." – Annie Dillard, author of the best-selling Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

"Those familiar with Buechner will feel like they've run into an old friend in the grocery store. Readers new to the author will probably develop a love affair with his ability to draw you into a story (sometimes with only a line or two) and then, in a few words, give you something you'll never forget. For instance, under the heading "Buechner": "I can't imagine myself with any other name ... If my name were dif-ferent, I would be different. When I tell you my name, I have given you a hold over me that you didn't have before. If you call it out, I stop, look and listen whether I want to or not. 'In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses that his name is Yahweh, and God hasn't had a peaceful moment since.'" – Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Beyond Words, Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith

"Whether reading "Beyond Words" makes for a happier, easier or more fulfilled life, I couldn't say. This much I know—it does, at least, for the duration of time you're reading it." – Jeff Simon

"In The Sacred Journey, Buechner tells us that we must learn to hear in our lives the sound of the holy. 'It is the function of all great preaching,' he writes, 'and of all great art, to sharpen our hearing to precisely that end.' Son of Laughter will not only help one hearthat sound; it is that sound." – Brooke Horvath

"These literary passes at contemporaneity are out of keeping with the biblical tone Mr. Buechner sustains, and with his faithful adherence to the original narrative. Some of the descriptive passages of the biblical countryside are lush and beautifully written, but they seem superfluous – Technicolor glosses. Writers can try to put flesh on the bones of this story, but finally it resists meddling, modernization, rewriting. The mesmerizing, cryptic original is a hard act to follow." – Lore Dickstein on The Son of Laughter

"The word 'soul' – not always welcome these days in secular culture – is the right word for Buechner. Telling Secrets is unabashedly Christian; ultimately, it's a meditation on the connection between knowing and sharing secrets and discovering the reality of a loving and merciful God." – Frank Levering on Telling Secrets