A pilgrim’s progress for the 21st century

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.