Content Warning: The entry on Mackenzie Allen Phillips references violence against children.

Mack is the husband of Nannette (Nan) and the father of five children: Jon, Tyler, Josh, Kate, and Missy. He is in his early fifties during most of the story’s narrative—a capable and practical man who is good at many things but admits that handling emotions and relationships is not among his skills. His friend Willie writes of him, “[I]n a world of talkers, Mack is a thinker and a doer” (9). He believes in God and occasionally attends church, but he has often struggled to have a faith as deeply personal as his wife’s. He cannot relate well to Nan’s intimate association with God as “Papa” due to emotional and physical trauma from an abusive father, who beat Mack so badly in his early teenage years that he ran away for good. He lived a wandering life for much of his young adulthood, working overseas, attending seminary in Australia, and even getting involved in a foreign conflict before returning to the US and settling down with Nan.

The crisis in Mack’s adult life comes when his youngest daughter, Missy, is kidnapped and killed while on a family camping trip.