How the Light Gets In • "Hyland is a talented writer grappling with serious questions about how we make our way through the world. . . .'
New York Times • "A story with grit and heart from an intelligent, perspicacious writer to watch."
Kirkus Reviews • "That Hyland is a talented writer is clear from the novel’s first page."
Australian Book Review • "Hyland is an intelligent writing grappling with serious questions about how we make our way through the world."
The New York Times • "Heartbreaking and compelling."
The Observer • "Expect to be blown away."
The Guardian • "A dry and fantastically sarcastic voice..."
Time Out, New York • "Spot on."
Irish Examiner • "a disturbing work which simmers with edgy brilliance."
Sunday Herald • "The best book I read this year..." Mark Cousins,
Scotland on Sunday Carry Me Down (2006) • "Hyland can do humour, horror and pathos all at once..."
The Spectator • "This is writing of the highest order..."
JM Coetzee • "[Hyland] brings life's uncomprehended complexities horribly alive."
The Times This Is How (2009) • "Unflinching, absorbing, morally complex ... an eerie, commanding book ... a novel about crime but not a crime novel ... thrilling, moving and compassionate."
The New York Times • "Bleak yet moving, mercilessly dispassionate yet shot through with kindness and wit, it is a profound achievement" Justine Jordan • "A novel of extraordinary power ... Hyland tells her story in a supercharged present tense, tremblingly aware of physical detail."
The Guardian • "This is an expertly paced, gripping novel that doesn't falter and never compromises its emotional truth."
The Times • "A tour de force. Hyland illuminates this man's damaged soul with such a steely, brilliant clarity that your heart breaks for him."
Helen Garner • "When you've been reading Hyland, other writers seem to lack integrity ... whereas she aims straight for the truth and the heart."
Hilary Mantel • "Three or four days [after finishing the novel], Hyland's white-hot prose was still smouldering in my head."
Financial Times • "She makes it look so simple, with her words of one syllable, with a style almost entirely devoid of affect; but there is nothing simplistic about her achievement."
New York Times • "The narrative drive is relentless, surging on and on in the toneless voice of Patrick Oxtoby, Hyland’s protagonist." Philip Womack
Teaching and editing • "The course carries on and, just as I'm starting to get bored by the group discussion, Curtis Brown Creative pulls what is a stroke of genius in the form of four sessions with MJ Hyland. OMFG. I read the first chapter of her book Carry Me Down. Wow, she can write – even if she is writing about teaching a child to drown puppies. I should have worked out what was coming. She is lively, clever and shit-scary in a way that few men are. She is intimidating yet attentive. Comparing her to our tutor is like comparing Guns N' Roses to Otis Redding." Collette Brown. ==Works==