Cross Roads is equal parts The Great Divorce, The Pilgrim's Progress, and It's a Wonderful Life. If you've enjoyed any of those works of thoughtful, inspiring fiction, you will enjoy William Paul Young's newest book.
Less theologically divisive but just as narratively imaginative as his first book, the sleeper hit The Shack, Cross Roads begins with a man we'd likely talk about behind his back. High-powered executive Anthony Spencer seeks money, security, and power above all else. Reclusive, alcoholic, and edging toward paranoia, he lacks any type of meangingful relationships. To further indict this pitiful soul, he remarries his ex-wife for a few weeks with the sole intention of divorcing her again, simply out of sheer spite. Years have passed since that second divorce to the same woman. His ex-wife hates him. Their daughter despises him. His employees fear him.
This is no George Bailey, that's for sure.
The Terrain of His Soul
The narrative really begins after Anthony suffers a head injury while drunk. He slips into a coma and we learn he has a brain tumor. It's while inside this coma that Anthony appears alive and well inside himself. He begins living on the very real terrain of his soul, a place where buildings and walls and people and creatures all exist. He communicates with these beings, some of whom he knows, like Jack, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (a small Lakota Indian grandmother), and Ego (a massively tall though grotesque figure). This part of the story has particular overtones of The Great Divorce and Pilgrim's Progress.
As if this story wasn't fanciful enough, Anthony is sent back to earth, so to speak. He's granted the ability to inhabit the minds of real, live people. Through their experiences, Anthony learns what it means to be thoughtful and compassionate. Through his interactions with others in his own life via the eyes of the person he's currently "inhabiting," he learns about the severely negative effect he's had on people his entire life. Instead of seeing the good that would be lost were he not in the world, a lá George in It's a Wonderful Life, he sees the bad that's always followed in his wake.
Hearts of Compassion
Anthony bounces back and forth between the real world and his interior soul-world, conversing with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, learning more about himself and the internal monsters he must quell. When inhabiting the mind of a live person, he's allowed to communicate with that person, which leads to a few entertaining exchanges. He can even be passed from one person to another via a kiss, which leads to Anthony experiencing the hurts and hopes of a number of characters in Cross Roads. From a teenager with Down Syndrome (based off a true-life family friend) to a boisterous young woman of faith who works at the hospital, Anthony is allowed a glimpse into hearts of compassion.
The Stranglehold of Grief
Through all of these interconnected stories, we learn of Anthony's traumatic history, the genesis story of how he came to be such a wretched, lonely soul. In some ways, this backstory could very well be connected to The Shack, as both of Young's books ruminate on the stranglehold that unresolved, deep grief can have on a person's soul.
Young does a masterful job in showing the tenacious love and loyalty of an ever-patient Savior, even amidst the very real heartache of loss and the brokenness of our worlds, both inner and outer. If you've ever questioned God as to why bad things happen, this book will not give you a single answer. Instead, it will help you see that all bad things will be redeemed in the end, and that, as a constantly refrained theme in Cross Roads, you are never alone.