I am trying to store a multiline string in a variable in make

var=$(shell cat <<End-of-message \
-------------------------------------\
This is line 1 of the message.\
This is line 2 of the message.\
This is line 3 of the message.\
This is line 4 of the message.\
This is the last line of the message.\
-------------------------------------\
End-of-message)


printit:
    @echo ${var}

This doesn't work, so I am wondering if this is possible at all. I need to preserve the newlines here and shell is converting them in spaces. Any suggestions?