Alex Malarkey co-wrote a bestselling book about a near-death experience – and then last week admitted he made it up. So why wasn’t anyone listening to a quadriplegic boy and a mother who simply wanted the truth to be heard?
When he wrote a blogpost in 2012, complaining about the explosively popular genre of books about near-death experiences, the evangelical writer and editor Phil Johnson did not know what he was getting into. He was voicing a concern common in the evangelical community about what he called the “Burpo-Malarkey doctrine”. Johnson believed that Colton Burpo, whose story was told in the hugely popular Heaven is for Real, and Alex Malarkey, who had co-written The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, drew false pictures of heaven in their books.
“No true evangelical ought to be tempted to give such tales any credence whatsoever, no matter how popular they become,” Johnson wrote.
I remember the man talking to Alex and to me, but not by myself. He never really asked me what I thought, but instead told me what monies could possibly be made from not only doing a book, but a series of books and possibly a movie. He reassured me how much that money could help with Alex’s needs. What stuck out was money!
Even if we could make a case for breaking our contract, the book could (and probably would) be back in print with another publisher within a few weeks. So I don’t think that would achieve your goal.
Also, I’m sure you can understand that we can’t break a contract with an author just because someone else – even if the someone else is the author’s spouse – makes accusations about him. We have to give the author, in this case Kevin, a chance to respond.
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