The Truth Behind 'The Shack' Movie: Fact vs. Fiction As Sexual Abuse Prompted Author To Write Book

By now, many people are familiar story of “The Shack,” a book made into a film earlier this month. The story follows a grieving father as he meets with three deities — God as an African-American woman, Jesus Christ as a carpenter from the Middle East and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman.

But few know about the story of William Paul Young, the author who wrote the novel, which was originally published in 2007.

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“The Shack, for me, is a metaphor for the place we as human beings hold our pain,” Young said in an interview with the Daily Mail published Tuesday.

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Young was introduced to acute pain early on in his life. When he was only a year old, his parents moved from Canada to Papua New Guinea to work as missionaries. When he turned six in the early 1960s, they sent him to boarding school, where he was molested by the Dani Tribe and older boys who attended his school.

“Sexual abuse became part of the very fabric of my soul,” he said.

Although Young’s story is grim, he’s not the only man who experienced molestation as a child. Increasingly, men are coming forward with their past experiences of sexual abuse at boarding schools. Last year, the Boston Globe’s investigative Spotlight team reported about the accounts of more than 200 victims at 67 private schools in New England. Many of those incidents occurred in the 1960s and 1970s.

Young said writing the book was a form of therapeutic release for him, a step toward healing.

“There is a whole other layer to the book in a deeper sense, a way for people to engage their own hurt and their own tears and their own great sadness,” he said.

After Young married his wife, Kim, his family suffered three great losses: his mother-in-law, his 18-year-old brother, Stephen, and his five-year-old niece, Kim, all died. Those deaths exacerbated his pain, he said.

As a result, in 2005, his wife encouraged him to write a book about loss, pain and god for his children.

“She said write something which will tell our children how you think outside the box (about God) and that was my attempt – the year when I turned 50 I thought I can finally do this,” Young said.

Young originally only printed 15 copies. After it was rejected by 26 publishers, it was finally published in 2007. It took another year for people to take notice of it, but since 2008, Young’s book has sold 20 million copies. The film was released March 3.