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William Paul Young never set out to become an author. He set out to fictionalize his own spiritual journey for the sake of his wife and children. What resulted was renown and widespread appreciation for the work of literature that was produced. Young was born in 1955 to two missionary parents and spent his early childhood years among the Dani Tribe of New Guinea. He was sent to boarding school when he was six years old. Young has six children, for whom The Shack was originally written (1). |
The Shack is a fictional story about a man, Mack(enzie), who suffers a grave tragedy in his life. Years later, with an unsolved mystery and unresolved grief, Mack begins to receive messages from an unknown source. Mack then travels to the location of his tragedy, where he meets God, portrayed as a robust black woman, Jesus, portrayed as a middle-age, middle-eastern man, and the Holy Spirit, portrayed as an insubstantial Asian woman. Over the course of a single weekend, Mack reconciles his relationship with God, solves the mystery that envelopes his tragedy, and comes to terms with his own grief. Themes in the novel include theological discussions of the nature of the Trinity, Free Will and Forgiveness and well as emotional themes such as grief, loss and reconciliation. Told through a first-person account given by the main character, Mack, The Shack reads as a highly-personal insight into one man’s confrontation with himself and The Creator (2).