Perspective

The Sacred Journey; a Memoir of Early Days is a portion Frederick Buechner's autobiography, so it is told in first person from Frederick's point of view. He thinks of himself as Freddy, to differentiate him from his father, who is called Fred. This is significant, since Freddy's father kills himself, and when Freddy's uncle follows suit, Freddy worries that he will turn out to be too much like his father and kill himself as well. The story is told by a fifty-year-old Freddy, who is looking back on his memories of his early life, and he recognizes that his viewpoint is necessarily biased by the many years which have passed and the ways in which he has changed over the years. Freddy tries to understand what is going on in the heads of various people, but in reminiscing, he is not even sure which thoughts he really remembers...