Summary of The Shack
The Shack is a novel that was published in 2007 and did not become popular till 2008. It was a New York Times Best Seller and sold over 5 million copies in print by 2009. The story starts out with Mack and his 3 out of 5 kids going camping in a state park in Oregon. After a few peaceful days of camping it turns south when Mack’s son tips a canoe leaving Mack no choice but to rush into the water and free him of the canoe. Leaving Missy at the campsite alone, when he returns, he notices that Missy is missing and immediately reports to the cops. After hours and hours of searching they come to find out that Missy has possibly been abducted and murdered by a serial killer named the Little Lady Killer. What leads the cops to their conclusion is there is a small pin that the killer left behind of a ladybug with 5 dots on it. When the Little Lady Killer abducts a victim he leaves a pin behind each time and each time he adds a dot to the back of the ladybug.
After searching and searching the police find an abandoned shack in the woods with Missy's bloody dress in it but they still find no body. Not only does Mack’s heart sink but also his life goes into what he calls “the great sadness”. No evidence is found in 4 years but then Mack gets a suspicious letter in the mail from Papa, the name his wife calls God.
Mack’s family has a planned vacation to go visit relatives and it finally gives Mack a chance to go visit the shack alone. He begs and begs his friend Willie to let him borrow his jeep, but Willie still tries to talk him out of it. When he finally gets the jeep he’s off to the shack. When he first arrives he walks all around and purposely finds nothing. When he begins to head back to the vehicle to leave he's disappointed, but all of a sudden the shack and all the landscape around him supernaturally transform into a lush and inviting landscape. Skeptical he enters the shack and encounters the wonderful manifestations known as the Trinity. God takes form as an African American woman that calls herself Elousia and Papa, Jesus the Son is seen as a Middle-Eastern carpenter and The Holy Spirit is seen as an Asian woman that goes by Sarayu.
Most of the book is narrated by Mack having conversations with the Trinity about getting over Missy's death. One of my favorite things they do in the book is represent the garden as Mack’s heart. He takes all the weeds and vines and everything that shouldn't be there and replants it with beautiful things. Little does he know that's where he will bury Missy's body in the near future.
Another experience Mack shares with Jesus is he gets to walk across the lake with Him where his kids almost drowned. At first he almost doesn't trust Him but he comes around when he takes the first step. There was a couple other times where he sees an image of his father in Heaven with Sarayu and it makes him grieve because he hated his father. He also has a conversation with Sophia (the personification of God's wisdom). At the end of the visit God decides to take Mack to the cave where Missy’s body was left.
After spending the weekend at the shack, Mack leaves and is so busy thinking about his whole weekend and about what happened with Jesus, he is nearly killed in a car crash. After he recovers, he realizes that he did not spend the weekend at the shack with the Trinity, but that his accident occurred on the same day that he arrived at the shack. He also leads the police to the cave that Papa revealed to him where Missy’s body was and they found Missy's body still lying there. With the help of the evidence discovered at the scene, the Little Ladykiller is arrested and put on trial within weeks.
Me personally I really enjoyed the book for it’s humor, like the little one liners like them telling Mack that they didn't have to eat but why not do it because it’s so good! Another part I liked about it was how they would foreshadow things, like Mack taking all the weeds out of this spot they had made in the garden for Missy's body to be buried.
