The Shack

The Shack, by William P. Young

This book is one-of-a-kind. It begins with a preface in which the author says he is telling the story as Mack, the main character, told it to him. Yet it is listed as fiction. This makes the reader wonder if the things contained in the book will be so amazing that the publishers decided no one would believe it was a true story and "banished" it to fiction.

As the story begins, Mack is dealing with the mundane experience of being restless during a snowstorm. Yeah, yeah. We've all experienced that. Can we get to something new please? I realize why it was essential that the author establish that Mack is just like any of us. But I was bored anyway. I wanted to know why the wholesale distributor Tom orders through was sold out and had 10,000 copies on order from the publisher.

Then we explored Mack's history. His daughter was missing and presumed dead, and Mack spent four years grieving, before this random snowstorm occurred and he went to the mailbox and found a note from God saying, "This weekend I'll be at the shack where you last saw Missy's blood, care to join me?" Of course, God didn't use those words, but that is what it boils down to.

Something compels Mack to go and meet with God. At this point, the book reaches its "Bruce Almighty" feel. Morgan Freeman makes no appearance in the whole book, but the author gives God a tangible character with whom Mack can interact. In the Bible, God is a spirit, a voice from the heavens, or generally just someone who doesn't interact with the common man, but speaks through the voices of the prophets. In The Shack, readers are re-introduced to God. True, it is a normal book. There is a definite plot, storyline, foreshadowing, build up to a climax in which the reader suddenly realizes the author has been weaving clues into the story the whole time, surprise ending, and eventual denouement. But it is also a book on theology. Be prepared to set aside what you thought you knew about God, in order to understand the author's perception of God.

The author has cleverly answered many of the hardest questions without saying anyone who has tried to answer them before was wrong. He allows Mack to ask God questions, and presents God's answers in the simplest ways possible. Because it is so simple, it has the feeling that it makes so much sense, of course its true. This is not to say that Mr. Young has taken a stand on certain theological topics such as the concept of the Trinity. It is just that he has managed to write a book that answers hard questions in simple ways without offending people who already have a specific viewpoint.

I recommend this book to people who are fed up with "religious" concepts of God, people who take an interest in theological discussions, people who wonder if their church may have gotten it wrong when introducing them to the creator of the universe, people who want to appreciate something that is not a "religion" but a "relationship," people who want to understand the death of a loved one, and anyone who thought Morgan Freeman played a great "God."


**********SPOILER ALERT**********


Looking back, I wonder: maybe this book should be taken off the fiction shelf and placed, not on the biography shelf, not on the theology shelf, but on the auto-biography shelf. ??? Think about that one...