The Boy Who Didn't Die...No, Not Harry Potter

Yesterday I found out that Alex Malarkey (heck of a last name) has issued a statement that his memoir, The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, is completely made up. As a young boy, Alex was in a devastating car crash with his father and is paralyzed to this day. Now, as a sixteen-year-old, he admits that his story about visiting heaven and meeting Jesus during his time in a coma is fictitious. The coma and accident were real, just not the journey.

This does not come as a total shock, but I'm a bit disappointed because I read Alex's book and while I did find it hard to believe, it was certainly spiritually uplifting. If nothing else, I felt it to be the story of a boy whose faith strengthened his family during a horrific time.

But now Alex says guilt has driven him to make this new message heard. He fabricated his lies because he wanted attention and boy did he get it. The book is a bestseller, but the Christian publisher who put it out is pulling it now that the truth is public. The waters are a little murky as to how long they have known about Alex's change of heart. His mother says the family has been trying to tell people for years that the book is not what it seems.

The Malarkey family still has faith and Alex was brave to set the record straight. In his public statement, he urges people to read the Bible and trust in it rather than seeking proof from stories like his. Some will see this new development in his story as evidence that God and Heaven are not real, but neither the book nor its subsequent exposure as fiction should have an effect on anyone who truly has faith.

If I tell everyone I saw an albino deer in my yard and later admit I made it up, that doesn't mean albino deer don't exist.

Upon looking back at my previous review of this book, which you can read here, I was pretty skeptical at the time. I think my original feelings about the book were mostly driven by the fact that Alex was so young and so many people were swallowing his story wholesale. Turns out I have pretty good sense sometimes.

The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven

The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven is the story of father and son, Kevin and Alex (whose last name, unfortunately, is Malarkey). Both were involved in a terrible car accident, leaving Alex in a coma. Upon awakening two months later, Alex began to tell his family about meeting God and visiting Heaven. Unsure at first how to take this news, Kevin continued to listen to Alex's tales and eventually embraced what he was saying as truth.

Children are heavily influenced by their parents, so it should be no surprise to anyone that the child of devoutly Christian parents would return from a brush with death speaking of seeing angels, Heaven, and God Himself. But if the Malarkeys' account is true, Alex also watched the events taking place at the accident site after he himself was airlifted to the hospital. This would suggest that he actually did have experiences while separated from his body. If he could watch his father being loaded into an ambulance while his own body was miles away, is a visit to Heaven any more far-fetched?

The book really reveals very few details about Alex's conversations with God and his knowledge of Heaven. It's a story more about the fact that the visit to Heaven took place rather than a meticulous account of all that happened there.

If you want to read this book to learn all the secrets of Heaven, don't bother. If you think reading this book will turn someone into a Christian, it won't. But if you want to see how faith can flourish in the worst of circumstances and catch a glimpse of the wondrous effect a strong Christian background can have on even a young child, this is a book you should read.

There is, of course, no way to prove Alex has seen all the things he claims. But for anyone who feels the presence of God in their life, this story will ring true on many levels.