A pilgrim’s progress for the 21st century
Mary Wakefield talks to the author William P. Young, whose self-published religious novel has astounded the publishing world and sold nearly two million copies Because I spoke to him on the phone, not in person, you’ll have to share my mental picture of William P. Young. There he is in a hotel room in Texas: 53, balding, with bright eyes and a greying goatee. He’s ironing as he talks (he says so), his sleeves rolled up (I reckon), with a snowy pile of pressed shirts beside him. On the table beside his bed is a photo of his wife, Kim, and the six young Youngs back home in Gresham, Oregon. On the floor: piles of his extraordinary book The Shack.
It’s extraordinary because of the subject matter — a man called Mack meets God in a shed — and also because of its phenomenal, inexplicable success in the face of what should have been certain book death. Though it was much loved by his friends, William P. Young’s manuscript was rejected by nearly 30 publishers. That should have put an end to it, but Young decided to print The Shack himself. He raised $15,000 (with the help of his pals Brad and Wayne) and created a website (total cost: $300). To date he’s sold almost two million copies worldwide and The Shack is being hailed as a modern-day Pilgrim’s Progress.
Paul Young (he uses his middle name) is No. 1 on the New York Times fiction bestseller list, the Borders bestseller list, the list at Barnes and Noble; and the internet is humming with tearful fans, swapping stories about how The Shack has transformed their lives. ‘How did the author get so deep inside my brain and drag out the things I needed answers to?’ Pete56. ‘This book opened my heart in a way I thought was impossible,’ says Ccshaked. ‘I don’t think I can really explain it.’ ‘Have you ever loved a book so much you figured it must have been written just for you? I simply can’t thank you enough, William Young,’ says heavyheart20.
How did it all begin? ‘Good Gordon, I don’t know,’ says Young. ‘I mean I’ve always written — poetry, short stories and stuff — but this one time my wife said, you know what? I think it would be kinda good for the children if you wrote about life, about God, about suffering. So I did. The Shack is a book about the nature of God as I see it, written for my kids.’ It’s not an absolute natural for children, I say, cautiously (the first part of the book describes the kidnap and brutal murder of our hero Mack’s five-year-old daughter). Paul laughs: ‘No, but I figured the worst possible situation would allow me to ask the best possible ques tions: who is this God really? Why does He allow suffering? Is He trustworthy?’ Did you suspect, when you were writing it, that you might be on to a winner? In the silence that follows I get the impression I’ve missed the point. ‘OK, you have to understand how little I take credit for it,’ says Young. ‘I mean, sure, I wrote it, but good Gordon [his voice rises from growl to squeak] you know, I am so in way over my head! In the best sort of way!’ By which he means, I think, that it’s God who’s pushing sales.
Another explanation is of course that the US has a bottomless appetite for spiritual self-help: the more horribly sugary the better. But though Paul is not quite C.S. Lewis, and his prose style is sometimes pretty sickly, the book is curiously effective. And though The Shack is a God book, it’s also a very odd book. It’s not stock shlock. The Almighty turns out to be a fat black lady called ‘Papa’. (‘To reveal myself to you as a white grand-father with a flowing beard would simply reinforce your religious stereotypes,’ She says.) Jesus is short and ugly and the Holy Spirit is Chinese.
But then for all his homey American life, William P. Young is not a normal man. ‘I’m a missionary kid,’ he says. ‘I grew up in the highlands of New Guinea among a tribe called the Dani. Christians and cannibals — that combination can really mess you up!’ Did it mess you up? ‘Well, my father was a drinker and a pretty big disciplinarian. And uh, so I was trying to survive.’ He’s also spoken of sexual abuse at the hands of his father’s parishioners.
But you didn’t rebel against your father, I mean, you followed in his footsteps and went to Bible college, I say. ‘I went to Bible school to hide the fact that I didn’t really trust God,’ says Young. ‘Then as I got older I began to realise what lies are told by the Church. Like you know, that God is mad with you or that religion is about obeying rules.’ Here’s another possible explanation for the success of The Shack: Young’s hostility towards organised religion. At a time when the Anglican Church is in-fighting and all manner of different denominations are at each other’s throats, a story which claims church is irrelevant is bound to appeal. ‘You know what, I really believe that religion and relationship with God are opposed,’ says Young. ‘I don’t care what kind of religion it is. If you’ve got a whole series of behavioural laws to follow, then I mean, it’s not right. That’s not God. Good luck. Give it your best shot and tell me how it works for you, but I don’t think that’s the Truth. God is about relationships.’ Which doesn’t mean that all religions are as good as each other for Paul Young. What the hero Mack discusses in the shack with fat black Papa and the gang is quite intricate Christian theology. ‘We are not three gods, and not one god with three attitudes, like a man who is a husband, father and worker,’ says Papa, explaining the Trinity. ‘I am one God, and I am three persons... If I were simply one God and only one person, then you would find yourself in this Creation without love and relationship. All love and relationship is possible for you only because it already exists within Me.’ Why did you write a book about the Trinitarian, Christian God if you’re anti‘religion’, I ask? ‘I believe in Scripture, I mean I’m very orthodox in terms of the traditional doctrinal framework,’ says Young. ‘But what I’m asking for is that we see these theological problems as questions about how we live the love of God. It’s not just intellectual territory. I really, really believe that God has unlimited affection for his creations.’ And do you think your book will be as well received here? ‘I’ve already had good feedback,’ says Young, a little defensive. ‘We’ve sold about 50,000 copies in the UK.’ That’s great, but we’re a secular nation, I say, trying to prepare him for disappointment. You can’t expect to sell a million copies here. We have rational answers for things — Richard Dawkins says so.
‘Ah, Dawkins!’ says Young. ‘Well he’s absolutely, wonderfully free to make his points but by far the majority of the human race has a sense of the transcendent. And you know, there’s a phrase in my book: “If anything matters, everything matters.” I put that in there to attack the nihilism of people like Dawkins because, like, come on! The basic question I’d ask any atheist [Young is unstoppable now] is, is there a drive in our hearts to be authentic? I think there is. We’re all longing to live in such a way that our lives become restful, we stop lying and trying to manipulate things. That’s the message of The Shack and it’s as relevant in England as it is in America.’ The Shack is published by Windblown Media in partnership with Hodder & Stoughton. It is available bookshops across the UK, price £7.99.
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