Book Review: “The Shack”

28 Jan 2009 Leave a Comment

by HEvencense in media, Spiritual Growth Tags: book reviews, Bunyanesque, Christian fiction, christian novels, William P. Young

William P. Young’s The Shack is one of the most remarkable novels I’ve ever read. Creative, intriguing, and gutsy, this engaging work addresses the age-old question of why/how a loving God can allow suffering and evil to exist in this world.

When “The Great Sadness” threatens to engulf him with tsunami severity, Mackenzie “Mack” Allen Phillips receives a cryptic note in his mailbox one winter afternoon. There’s no return address. No postal mark. No signature. The typed note is signed “Papa” – the word his wife, Nan, uses for God. Unbelievably, the sender asks Mack to meet him at the shack – the site of an immense tragedy about four years prior.

Against his better judgment, Mack gingerly, reluctantly finds himself on the road to the wilderness area where his young daughter, Missy, was abducted during a family camping trip and subsequently murdered. What and Who he finds at the shack travels with Mack through his blistering rage, sorrow, confusion, disillusionment, and accusation as well as infinite amazement, forgiveness, grace, and finally, immeasurable joy and wonder – without the clichés and canned answers on either side of the equation.

Set in the Pacific Northwest, this intense, beautifully written story is “ghostwritten” by the author as “told by” Mack, whose unspeakable personal loss leads him on a Bunyanesque journey into eternity – and some startling surprises.

Refreshingly, The Shack isn’t about churchianity, sitting in a pew on Sunday, skimming through a Scripture reading so you can mark it off your daily to do list, or textbook academia that’s as dry as the Atacama. It centers on relationships that are as bold and dazzling and mysterious as a  new harvest moon. The imaginative portrayal of the Trinitarian God is especially delicious and exhilarating in this regard, and within biblical bounds.

Of the nearly 200 books I read last year, The Shack is among my top ten titles. I read the whole thing (250+ pages) cover-to-cover in just over 24 hours. It’s THAT good. As in, brilliant. If you don’t read anything else this year and want something fresh, authentic and amazing, don’t miss The Shack.

(Note: The Shack is a novel, as in fiction. It neither purports nor pretends to be a theological treatise. So if you’re of the American Gothic persuasion, never mind.)

Reviewed by: Kristine, author, blogger, homeschooler, professional mom and chief wrangler at the ‘ole testosterone ranch.