Carry Me Down (Paperback)

~ M. J. Hyland (Author)
Key Phrases: lie detection, Aunty Evelyn, Miss Collins, Guinness Book of Records (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A spare, piercing testimony to the bewilderment and resiliency of youth, Hyland's second novel (following How the Light Gets In) filters the adult world through the distressed lens of adolescence, which makes every change look like a test of survival. John Egan is an extremely tall 11-year-old boy living in the small town of Gorey, Ireland, with the moody triumvirate of his mother, father and grandmother. As he faces the trials of home and school life, John feels he has no place in the world, and his frustration fuels odd obsessions: with the Guinness Book of World Records, with physical human contact and with his "gift" for detecting lies. His parents, already sorting through their own uneasy relationship, puzzle over their only son with doctors and teachers, pushing John to a moment of crisis, which may prove his undoing. John's voice is singular and powerful throughout: "I wait anxiously for my turn, thinking that he'll soon discover me and know that I'm different. I've already decided that I'll tell him about my gift." By the subtle, satisfying dénouement, one is rooting for John's place in the Guinness book and saving a space for him among the year's memorable characters. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

At 11, John Egan is nearly six feet tall with a deep voice, and he feels like a freak, especially after he wets himself in class. John believes he is a gifted human lie detector, and he himself is a great liar; his obsession is to be famous and have his gift recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records. But why is Dad lying? The child's naive first-person, present-tense narrative brings achingly close his helplessness in a powerful adult world. He may be a giant, but he has no control. Why suddenly is the family moving? Where to? What is wrong? When they land up in the public-housing projects in Dublin, the scary threat seems to be from a brutal street gang, but the real terror turns out to be in the intimacy of his home. Focused on small things, the quiet plain scenes of daily life lead to the surprising and unforgettable climax. Pain is harder than ignorance. Who needs the truth? Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Canongate U.S. (January 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841958786
• ISBN-13: 978-1841958781
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #301,484 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heartrending, long after you've closed the cover, August 28, 2006

By	Bluestalking Reader "Bluestalking Reader" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Carry Me Down (Hardcover)

Carry Me Down leaves you with a lump in the throat after you've closed the cover. It's such an authentic portrait of what it is to be a lonely adolescent who's an awkward misfit, though thankfully not every lonely adolescent tries to smother his mother.

The focus of this book is on the brutality of childhood, as well as the huge impact parents play in forming the psyches of their children. Though not an abused child per se, John Egan is raised by somewhat unstable parents who don't always provide him with the emotional and financial stability he so desperately needs. He becomes a compulsive liar who's convinced he has a preternatural ability to detect lies in others, and as such he's somewhat an unreliable narrator. The reader can read between the lines and get a good general idea of the truth, by knowing the reactions of the other characters, so the occasional delusions of John are easily seen through. He is a liar, but not a sophisticated one. There's a lot of innocence in him, through it all, and this is what gets our sympathy. He's a child who needs a lot of love and who gets precious little, and that's what breaks the reader's heart more than anything.

After finishing this book last evening I cannot get it out of my head. It's dark and sometimes depressing, but in the end redemptive. No wonder the Booker committee chose it. It illustrates a very good instinct for picking out another up-and-comer to watch.

I expect Hyland may not have the visibility to actually win the prize, but this is one of the most heart-rending books I've read in a while, and it definitely deserves making the Longlist. It's so worth making the effort to fit this one into your reading schedule.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quietly disturbing and deftly written, March 17, 2007

By	A Reader (Oregon) - See all my reviews

After I had read the first 20 or so pages of this book, I thought I might have to put it down and not read the rest. There is a scene of such quiet violence inside an otherwise placid domestic setting that I could not bear to read it. But I did continue, at first through slightly squinting eyes (not to be caught off-guard again), and quickly found that I couldn't put the book down. One might say that 'nothing happens' (as I've read earlier here), but I'd argue that everything happens. We watch as the author carefully and quietly dessimates an entire personality before our eyes. She never releases the tension, from scene to scene (I had much trouble sleeping at night after reading this -- a warning to other bedtime readers), and I couldn't stop turning the pages. I did have a little trouble with some of her characters who are slipped in but never developed: the teacher, Mr. Roche, is a complete mystery to me (what did he want with John? What was that all about?). The gang who threatens John disappears as if they never existed, despite the fact that he does not complete the task they set for him. The author always comes back to this troubled triumverate of a family (calling them dysfunctional does not even begin to describe the destructive forces inside them). I wish I knew someone who's read the book so that we can analyze it to death. The parents seem to love the boy genuinely, and yet they also seem to fear him, and to infantalize him. The broken aspects of their marriage, and the psychological violence that springs from it, has a profound affect on the boy which they seem never to realize (until, perhaps, the end, and even then it's hard to tell if they really do see, or if they've made a pact to ignore it). The reader watches the boy's personality slowly break, but it's done with such fierce tenderness -- the contradictions in this writing are, I think, profound. And to call the ending 'redemptive' is, to me, inaccurate. I felt relief to find them back in the place where they began, and yet the dysfunctions remain. One wonders who John Egan will grow up to be; there is no real healing here, only an attempt to be loved again. That paradox kept me awake late into the night after I finished this. A tour de force, I think, despite some quibbling flaws.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Charming Character, September 30, 2006

By	Katrina Denza "KatDenza" (NC, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Carry Me Down (Hardcover)

In M. J. Hyland's latest novel a boy whose large size already casts him as being different, strives to set himself apart officially, by making it into his favorite book, the Guiness Book of World Records. John Egan believes he can do this by being the world's only human lie-detector. In the background, his family struggles with his father's choice to pursue his dream rather than keep a steady job and John suffers humiliation from his peers after he wets himself in class. Hyland's writing is clear and lovely; her characters, unforgettable and charming.