English Pronunciation Audio

"A spare, piercing testimony to the bewilderment and resiliency of youth. [John is] among the
year's memorable characters."Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Hyland demonstrates a mature sense of characterization and suspense in a thoroughly engaging narrative."
Kirkus Reviews

John Egan is a misfit, a twelve-year-old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant. He has been able to
detect lies for as long as he can remember and diligently keeps track of them, large and small, in a log of lies.
With an obsession for the Guinness Book of World Records, a keenly inquisitive mind, and a kind of faith,
John is like a tuning fork, sensitive to the vibrations within himself and his family's shifting dynamics.

From his changing voice, body, and psyche to his parents' disheartening marital difficulties, this is a trying year in
a fragile young boy's life, and when his sanity reaches near collapse, a frightening family catastrophe threatens to
ruin what little they have.

Carry Me Down is a restrained, emotionally taut, and sometimes outrageously funny portrait whose drama
drives toward, but narrowly averts, an unthinkable disaster.

M. J. Hyland was born in London in 1968 to Irish parents and spent her early childhood in Dublin. She is the author of How the Light Gets In.

Gerard Doyle was born of Irish parents and raised in Hertfordshire, England. He has had an extensive career in both television and repertory theatre in Great Britain and America. He toured nationally and internationally with the English Shakespeare Company and has appeared on London's West End, as well as on Broadway. A seasoned narrator of audiobooks, he has been awarded eleven AudioFile Earphones Awards and is a nominee for the 2006 Audie Awards.