Reading Frederick Buechner’s novel Godric against the conventions of the hagiographic genre, this article examines Buechner’s innovation to the tradition of the saint’s life. Focusing on the novel’s structure—including its direct address to the reader, its varied chronology, and its depiction of five friends who reconstitute the wounds of Christ—the article argues that Buechner introduces the spiritual practice of Christian friendship as a rhetorical alternative to the traditional hagiographic relationship between narrative and reader, thus inviting the reader to become friends with both Christ and the titular protagonist through the act of reading.
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