Language English | Published 1971–1977 Publisher Atheneum Books | |
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The Book of Bebb is a novel tetralogy by Frederick Buechner. The series consists of Lion Country (1971), Open Heart (1972), Love Feast (1974) and Treasure Hunt (1977). The tetralogy was then edited and published in one volume as The Book of Bebb (1979).
The Bebb novels revolve around the figure of Leo Bebb, a clergyman with a shady past, and are narrated by his son-in-law, Antonio Parr. Timothy K. Jones notes that Buechner "did not flinch at depicting Bebb's shady finances and sexual exhibitionism."
W. Dale Brown argues that The Book of Bebb "continues with the questions dominating all of Buechner's work: belief versus unbelief, the ambiguities of life, the nature of sin, human lostness, spiritual homesickness, the quest for self-identity, the need for self-revelation, the search for meaning, and the possibility of joy." Brown goes on to suggest that "Buechner's repeated use of ambiguous protagonists as channels of grace suggests Graham Greene, J. F. Powers and Robertson Davies."