Outlaw Audio CD – Audiobook, CD, Unabridged

If I hadn’t heard Ted Dekker speak in person at the re:Write conference in Austin, TX, I probably never would have picked up this book. I like to read true stories and prefer a good dose of probability if not historicity in my fiction. To the casual reader, Outlaw, delivers neither.The first 21 chapters follow Julian, a lonely, unattached, single mother perplexed by a mysterious song in a repetitive dream. Feeling as if she has nothing to lose, Julian and her two-year-old son, Stephen, leave their home in Atlanta in search of the dream’s source, its meaning. And here the story opens, with Julian and Stephen “tossed about like a cork on a raging dark sea off the northern tip of Queensland in 1963”.A sudden storm capsizes the boat, taking the captain under with it. Julian is rescued alone by three indigenous warriors representative of three tribes collectively called the Tulim, living in a jungle valley by the same name. Briefly, Julian clings to the hope that she will escape or be freed and return to her homeland. But, she also wonders if life without her son is worth living. Perhaps she would rather die at the hand of uncivilized strangers.Julian never goes home.I won’t wreck the story by divulging details, but I will try to explain the feelings that, Outlaw, evoked in me.Most nights, I put the book aside determined not to pick it up again. I wasn’t drawn in. I didn’t identify with Julian. The jungle setting and depictions of tribal life seemed to stretch my imagination. But somehow, perhaps a bit like Julian’s winsome melody, Outlaw, held some magnetic power over me.Outlaw’s obvious themes are sacrifice and redemption. But what captivated me was Dekker’s description of humanity. Through key characters, Dekker reveals his perception of human bodies as costumes, our immortal spirits as our true selves and the freedom that comes from internalizing this truth. I could almost taste a new freedom; personally feel chains and inhibitions fall away as his characters progressively released their fears of pain, loss and loneliness and embraced the all-sufficiency of The Father.A few things marred my appreciation for this book. Three characters seemed to simply disappear without proper closure and the demise of one seemed unnecessary and slightly outside of the narrative’s flow. Secondly, in the final chapters, it is a little difficult to discern between what is happening to flesh and blood characters and what might be happening to them postmortem in their eternal existence.As for the narrative seeming a little far-fetched, the Author’s Note explains it was in fact realistic, however outside of the average reader’s experience. Dekker was raised the son of missionaries in the jungles of Irian Jaya. He lived among a tribe of cannibals called the Dani tribe. I particularly appreciated this revelation as it lent authenticity to the story instead of simple, wild imagination.[...]

I was unsure of what to think when I heard that Outlaw was going to be released. Early reviews stated that it is "different" than Dekker's other works, which, generally speaking, are "different" to begin with. (It is not often that I read novels that contain talking bats, demon-possessed serial killers, vigilante priests, people drowning in lakes only to be born anew, etc. Comprende?)Those early reviews are right. In Outlaw you will not find serial killers who have Noxema fetishes or break people's bones or stuff like that. There aren't any vampires or deadly epidemics that kill everyone, either.What you will find is the story of a young woman named Julian Carter who is shipwrecked and "saved" by a tribe of islanders. Her infant son, Stephen, is presumed lost at sea. Julian's part of the story is written in first-person, and my heart broke for her as she is abused by the tribe, who is not welcoming of outsiders. In fact, those who wander into the valley they call home are never permitted to leave. Those who escape are killed.Julian is permitted to live among them under one condition: that she "marry" one of the princes vying for control of the valley and produce a son for him.This is gut-wrenching stuff, folks.Dekker's trademark weirdness kicks in about halfway through the novel. It turns out that the first half of the book is Julian's handwritten account of her first few months with the tribe, and her son, Stephen (who didn't drown after all) was presumably reading it. He's twenty years old now, because eighteen years have passed since Julian was taken captive. Now it's up to Stephen to rescue her from the tribe...or is it?Unfortunately, I didn't identify with Stephen very well. After being separated from his mother he had a VERY unusual upbringing, and some of the conversations he has with his mentor left me scratching my head a bit. There's a lot of philosophizing. Or is theologi-phizing? And then it gets trippy. REAL trippy. What started out as a reasonably "normal" story turned into something far different by the end.Was this my favorite Dekker novel? No. Was it my least favorite? Definitely not. For those who can appreciate a touching story and food for thought, Outlaw is a must-read.

I am a huge Dekker fan. I have thoroughly enjoyed everything I have read from him. I am also a Christian so I have absolutely no problem with the spiritual aspect of his books, that is what drew me to his writing in the first place.The first part of the book was well done. It kept me engaged and got me to invest in the characters. The only thing I didn't really like about the first part of the book was the main characters seemingly fast development of a "Stockholm Syndrome" type of outlook. It seemed a little forced with her struggling too little with it. Overall, that could be overlooked since he needed to move the story and the plot along.What he moved onto, though, didn't seem worth it at the end...The second part of the book seemed to drag on with much of the same repeated theological/philosophical dialogue. Again, I don't have a problem with its inclusion, but it got a little heavy to wade through at times since it was repeated over and over. I found myself skipping over the dialogue at those points, which is never a good sign for a book.The thing that really threw me though was the deus ex machina resolve to the final conflict. It seemed out of place since there was nothing of that nature, or even hinting to it, throughout the whole book. Everything was resolved and wrapped up just too quickly and nicely for it to be a satisfying ending.For it being a Dekker book I was sorely disappointed with the second part of the story and its ending.That being said, it won't keep me from coming back for more Dekker or cause me to lose respect for his writing and storytelling style, after all, not everything can be a five-star story.