M. J. Hyland - Carry Me Down

John Egan, an abnormally large 12-year old boy growing up in Ireland in the 1960s, believes he has an uncanny ability to detect lies, and desperately wants the Guinness Book of World Records to recognize his gift. Though he does, truthfully, have a keen knack for spotting white lies, Egan is actually woefully deluded about the cruel realities of his bitter little world. His father's whoring, his mother's depression, and the poverty of their lives filters itself through his narrow and increasingly unstable perception of life. Minor offenses (his grandmother slurping tea) become magnified into traumatic humiliations, while actual tragedies (the death of a friend) almost slip by unnoticed. The result is a riveting and devastating first-person novel (a finalist for the Man Booker prize in 2006) that pulls the reader into John's mind with such force that the experience is akin to drowning.