sypnosis the shack
The Shack by William P. Young1
Summary by Stacey Tuttle
General Overview
The Shack is a fictional story (although presented as truth) about a man, Mack, whose daughter is abducted and presumably brutally murdered (though her death isn’t confirmed for years). Four years after Missy’s abduction, he receives a note from “Papa” (his wife’s name for God) asking Mack to meet him at the shack where evidence of his daughter’s murder was found. It is here where Mack has an encounter with the triune Godhead through which he is able to come to peace about some of the deeper questions that have plagued his life and faith, Missy’s death and his own painful childhood of abuse. Background
This book was written for the author’s family without any original thought of publishing. His wife and children would have known that Mack wasn’t real and would have seen the resemblances between the characters and themselves. He originally intended to list himself and Mack as co-authors on the cover, but when a few copies got spread around to friends and he heard that people were wanting to fly to town just to discuss the events from the story with Mack and Willie, Willie decided to at least remove the co-authorship from the cover. There are deeply autobiographical elements in the story, but the story is itself fiction. Perhaps the best explanation for why he wrote the story is in the foreword where he states, “he wanted a narrative to help him express to *his family+ not only the depth of his love, but also to help them understand what had been going on in his inside world.” You can go to the author’s webpage to learn more at http://www.windrumors.com/ .
Chapter Summaries
Foreword
The foreword explains the history of the main character, Mack, which is critical to the actual story.
Mack and his family were horribly abused by his drunken, church-going, religious father. At the age of
13, he put poison in his father’s beer bottles, a note under his mother’s pillow
Summary by Stacey Tuttle
General Overview
The Shack is a fictional story (although presented as truth) about a man, Mack, whose daughter is abducted and presumably brutally murdered (though her death isn’t confirmed for years). Four years after Missy’s abduction, he receives a note from “Papa” (his wife’s name for God) asking Mack to meet him at the shack where evidence of his daughter’s murder was found. It is here where Mack has an encounter with the triune Godhead through which he is able to come to peace about some of the deeper questions that have plagued his life and faith, Missy’s death and his own painful childhood of abuse. Background
This book was written for the author’s family without any original thought of publishing. His wife and children would have known that Mack wasn’t real and would have seen the resemblances between the characters and themselves. He originally intended to list himself and Mack as co-authors on the cover, but when a few copies got spread around to friends and he heard that people were wanting to fly to town just to discuss the events from the story with Mack and Willie, Willie decided to at least remove the co-authorship from the cover. There are deeply autobiographical elements in the story, but the story is itself fiction. Perhaps the best explanation for why he wrote the story is in the foreword where he states, “he wanted a narrative to help him express to *his family+ not only the depth of his love, but also to help them understand what had been going on in his inside world.” You can go to the author’s webpage to learn more at http://www.windrumors.com/ .
Chapter Summaries
Foreword
The foreword explains the history of the main character, Mack, which is critical to the actual story.
Mack and his family were horribly abused by his drunken, church-going, religious father. At the age of
13, he put poison in his father’s beer bottles, a note under his mother’s pillow