How Not to Find a Mentor

Becoming a Christian is, generally speaking, bad for a novelist’s career. With some exceptions to this this rule (Marilynne Robinson, for one), a committed Christian in the world of letters faces bewildered misunderstanding from the literary community and, often, a Christian community expecting every story to follow the plotline of “Amazing Grace.” Someone compelled by both a gospel faith and a literary vision will sometimes end up forgotten by both communities. That is, I suppose, how Frederick Buechner ended up in exile here among the born again. Despite the fact that Buechner was a groundbreaking and award-winning novelist even…