Alex Malarkey was six years old when a car crash put him in a coma for two months, during which time he said he went to heaven and visited angels. The resulting memoir, co-authored with his father, was a best-seller. But now, five years after its publication, Alex says he made the whole thing up, NPR reports.
“I did not die. I did not go to Heaven,” he wrote in an open letter to Christian books retailers. “I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention.”
Tyndale House, the book’s publisher, is now pulling The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven and all “ancillary products.” Malarkey, now a teenager, says readers should instead turn to the Bible, “which is enough. … Anything written by man cannot be infallible.”
[NPR]
Read next: What Christianity Without Hell Looks Like
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