Gresham author writes nation’s No. 1 paperback

‘The Shack’ spawns discussion, debate

By Rob Cullivan

The Gresham Outlook, Jul 11, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (6 Reader comments)

William Young of Gresham is the author of "The Shack,” a bestselling Christian paperback.

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A struggling author could go insane hearing William Paul Young talk.

Whereas some writers spend years crafting books that never sell, Young, a Gresham resident, sat down and wrote a story about God and forgiveness a few years back intended solely for his six children after his family suffered a series of deaths.

The manuscript he wrote has since become the No. 1 paperback trade fiction book in the country, even though no mainstream publishers — including Christian ones — would touch it. Its initial marketing budget cost a whopping $300 and Young had never published a novel before.

“Which tells you God uses the foolish,” Young says with a laugh as he talks about “The Shack.”

The book details the journey of Mack, whose daughter Missy is abducted and murdered near Multnomah Falls during a weekend camping trip. The killer is never caught, nor is Missy’s body found, and Young notes his book offers no easy answers for those dealing with similar losses.

“To me, the loss of a child is as deep a loss as a human being can experience,” Young says. He adds that he deliberately avoided writing the happy ending of having Mack somehow reuniting with Missy — even in spirit — noting that parents of murdered children tell him they appreciate that aspect of the book.

“I’ve had people who’ve lost children who told me how important it was for Mack not to touch her.”

As Mack’s family becomes mired in the painful aftermath of Missy’s murder, God, or “Papa,” invites Mack to the shack where Missy’s bloodied dress was found. There the grief-stricken father finds out Papa is an African-American woman, Jesus is somewhat clumsy and not particularly handsome and the Holy Spirit is an Asian gardener, among other things.

The book shifts back and forth between a traditional linear story and a sort of spiritual essay. It reads more like a message wrapped inside a novel rather than a novel that hints at a message. In this way, it runs somewhat counter to the modern idea of a novel, but then again it wasn’t written for the literati, it was written for an audience no one, including Young, seems to have realized existed until it was published.

That audience, Young notes, includes people who’ve suffered parental abuse or neglect, prisoners who fear God won’t forgive them for their crimes, and folks who admire Jesus but not necessarily his followers. In other words, it’s an audience that’s not concerned with how hip or clever or edgy a book is, but whether or not that book contains truly useful insights.

As of this week, “The Shack” has sold more than 1.7 million copies and spawned discussion groups worldwide. It’s earned the ire of some Christians uncomfortable with its theology or images of God, but the book has also garnered praise from other Christians as well as non-Christians for its powerfully benevolent portrait of the divine.

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