Whichever way you read it, this is a little shocking: the publishers of a bestselling account of a six-year-old’s journey to heaven – there and back – have decided to pull the book, the Washington Post reports. Written by Alex Malarkey (apt surname) with his father Kevin, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven has won many readers with its account of his experience of “miracles, angels and life beyond this world” following an awful car crash that put him in a coma for two months and left him paralysed.

But five years later Alex has stunned readers with the revelation that – get this – he was lying. “I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention,” he announced on the excellently-named Pulpit and Pen blog. His mother Beth – now divorced from his father – has been saying much the same thing for more than a year without attracting much attention.

Alex, who apologises for the brevity of his statement because his injuries make it very hard to write, has shown courage in coming forward, given the flak that probably awaits from adherents of what is apparently a popular genre in itself: “heavenly tourism”.

You have to wonder, though, if publisher Tyndale has actually been a little precipitous in ditching their trip: Dan Brown is just one example of someone who is quite clear about his books being madey-uppey, only serving to reinforce some of his readers’ belief that his alternative history is actually the truth laid bare. If people believed Malarkey’s story in the first place, I’m not sure it’s clear they’ll stop now.