The Girl Behind the Red Rope by Ted Dekker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Grace saw something. It rattled their church building. It shook the pews. And it threatened to invade their souls unless they retreated behind the red rope. The red rope meant safety from the evils lurking in the woods just beyond. But when someone steps over that rope, everything will change forever, because now nothing is stopping the evil from creeping into the town that had always been home.
It’s been a while since I read a Ted Dekker novel, and with The Girl Behind the Red Rope he’s partnered with his daughter, Rachelle Dekker, to write a scary story reminiscent of the best parts of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and also Ted Dekker’s own Water Walker novel. A highly religious community facing unspeakable horrors lurking in the dark, this book definitely did enough to linger long after I had set it down. While I wouldn’t say this is my favorite book from Dekker, this one definitely has a lot of the stylistic Dekker suspense.
The main character Grace is the most fleshed out here, and we spend most of the novel from her point of view as she tries to determine what is real and what is not. We also follow her spiritual journey and see the questions she asks of the realities and imaginations surrounding her. She felt like a real person in many ways, with real responses to the horrifying world she’s found herself in.
Dekker’s personal theology comes through here, and it seems he’s taken some cues from people like Father Richard Rohr, who advocates for talking in terms of original goodness of humanity versus original sin. The idea is that Adam and Eve in the garden had “original goodness” long before they had “original sin.” They were basically good, but fell into darkness (For more on Rohr’s thought pattern, see The Divine Dance by Richard Rohr). This idea permeates the novel, and definitely sparks some conversations about what is evil, how does it interact with humanity, and what does it mean to find freedom in Christ. Dekker has dealt with this idea before, specifically in Outlaw and The Outlaw Chronicles.
That said, The Girl Behind the Red Rope is a deep dive into the question of evil. If you’re a Ted Dekker or Rachelle Dekker fan, this will be a welcome novel in the vein of their previous works, delivering much of the suspense fans have always enjoyed.