Ted Dekker, The New York Times best-selling author, revisits the land of his childhood in his latest novel, Outlaw, which goes on sale Tuesday. Dekker grew up in the jungle as the son of missionaries living with head-hunter tribes in Indonesia in the 1960s.
“It was beautiful,” he said. “I ran into the mountains, literally swinging from trees.”
It was also a lonely existence - “devastating at some point,” Dekker said.
“For me it was when I was 6 and went to a boarding school and there I had no one to lean on. I was all alone and desperately homesick and confused … I began to ask those really profound questions - who loves me? Who am I? The same questions we all face.”
During that time Dekker said he leaned on his imagination, which has served him well ever since. Dekker has written more than 30 novels, and more than 10 million copies of his books have sold worldwide. His novels Thr3e and House, were made into movies.
Dekker will talk about his latest book and share some of his life experiences during a Thursday visit to Little Rock as part of the 18-city Outlaw Tour. The free event will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the Church at Rock Creek, 11500 W. 36th St.
Dekker said Outlaw is a different kind of book for him.
“It’s probably one of the most spiritual books I’ve written in many years,” he said. “It’s a very dramatic, very different kind of story.”
The author is known for writing page-turning thrillers and books with supernatural elements. Outlaw (Center Street/Hachette Book Group) has elements of both. The book tells the story of Julian Carter, who finds herself far from her Atlanta home after embarking on an exploratory missionary journey with her young son. After a devastating shipwreck, Carter is captured by a primitive jungle tribe and her pleas to God seem to go unanswered.
“I wanted to write something totally fresh for me,” he said. “And I wanted to return to my roots and the people I grew up with. I wanted to make them very human.It’s a way for me to take my readers into a place of pure escapism which is really very real.”
While Dekker enjoys meeting fans, he said he always shied away from speaking at churches.
“For many years now, the last 15 years, they’ve always wanted me to do a tour that would reach out to the church and to Christians specifically,” he said.
The problem was that even though his books are shot through with themes of faith and popular with Christians, Dekker has never seen himself as a Christian author writing specifically for a church audience.
“So I always said no,” he said. “Mostly it was a matter of pride, to be honest, but we all take journeys and my writing is essentially one big, long journey. My novels are like my journals … all of my novels reflect my own journey and questions.”
Dekker said he changed his mind about partnering with churches because of changes in his own life. He said Outlaw is essentially about his journey out of darkness.
“From a broken place, I’ve seen something new, something incredible, something staggering worth sharing,” he said.
The author promises a night of discovery for tour participants.
“I will lead them on a journey of discovery of who we are,” he said. “I would sayvery few of us truly know who we are and when we discover who we truly are, everything changes and all the darkness and suffering that holds us captive falls away and becomes strangely secondary.”
Dekker said his journey has been one of struggle, with failure and fame.
“I have suffered tremendously in my life and mostly it’s been mental anguish. We artists and writers, we go deep in these questions and it causes this existential angst,” he said. “That was me. Many times I felt like giving up. The more success I had, instead of giving me a greater sense of security it extracted even greater demands.”
He said he finally has release from that angst and wants to share his message with others.
“I’m in such a beautiful place in my own spiritual journey,” he said. “I hope people will come out. I’m not preaching. It will be an experience.”
Information is available online at theoutlawtour.com.
Religion, Pages 12 on 10/19/2013