Godric was composed by Buechner while in full residence at his family home in Vermont, shortly after the publication of The Book of Bebb. In his autobiographical work, Now and Then (1983), Buechner reveals that the novel was authored after his children had left home, and thus represents the beginning of a new life chapter: 'for me', he writes, 'it shook the very foundations themselves and marked the beginning of a new leg of the journey which I am in the midst of still.[4]
The author's discovery of the character of Godric was similar to that of Leo Bebb. In Now and Then he writes: 'I picked up a small paperback book of saints and opened it, by accident, to the page that had Godric on it. I had never so much as heard of him before, but as I read about him, I knew he was for me, my saint.'[4]
