M. J. Hyland Book order (chronological)

The brilliant new novel from the author of the Man-Booker-shortlisted Carry Me Down

John Egan wächst in der irischen Provinz auf, es sind die Siebzigerjahre, und der Alltag ist von Geldnot bestimmt. Doch John besitzt eine außergewöhnliche Gabe: die Lügen der Erwachsenen zu durchschauen, was für ihn und seine Familie tragische Folgen hat. – Ein beklemmendes Familiendrama um eine Gabe, die alles andere als ein Segen ist.

Ireland, 1971: John Egan is a misfit, 'a twelve year old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant who insists on the ridiculous truth'. With an obsession for the Guinness Book of Records and faith in his ability to detect when adults are lying, John remains hopeful despite the unfortunate cards life deals him. During one year in John's life, from his voice breaking, through the breaking-up of his home life, to the near collapse of his sanity, we witness the gradual unsticking of John's mind, and the trouble that creates for him and his family...

A teenager yearns to escape her roots—but feels like an outsider with the wealthy family that takes her in—in this novel from a Booker Prize finalist. Sixteen-year-old Australian exchange student Louise (Lou) is ecstatic that she has left behind her rough family, who mock her for using big words, and their tiny flat choked with cigarette smoke. Placed in a wealthy Chicago suburb, in a pristine McMansion with the Harding family, Lou is stunned by the glossy ‘There are so many healthy, good-looking teenagers that a few crooked teeth, or short, fat fingers, suddenly take on the proportions of deformities.’ The Hardings are earnest and warm, but Lou’s high-strung insecurity and wary independence begin to widen the cracks in her host family’s strained domesticity, particularly when Lou turns increasingly to booze and drugs . . . Lou’s furious, first-person voice is filled with piercing observations that beautifully balance Lou’s teenage detachment and aching, intelligence and self-absorption, yearning and recklessness. And like Holden Caulfield, with whom she invites inevitable comparison, Lou is unmerciful toward those satisfied with easy answers.