Be Near Me - by Andrew O'Hagan (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"Always trust a stranger," said David's mother when he returned from Rome. "It's the people you know who let you down."

Half a life later, David is Father Anderton, a Catholic priest with a small parish in Scotland. He befriends Mark and Lisa, rebellious local teenagers who live in a world he barely understands. Their company stirs memories of earlier happiness--his days at a Catholic school in Yorkshire, the student revolt in 1960s Oxford, and a choice he once made in the orange groves of Rome. But their friendship also ignites the suspicions and smoldering hatred of a town that resents strangers, and brings Father David to a reckoning with the gathered tensions of past and present.

In this masterfully written novel, Andrew O'Hagan explores the emotional and moral contradictions of religious life in a faithless age.

From the Back Cover

Long-listed for the Man Booker Prize

"O'Hagan tackles a highly charged subject with exceptional intelligence and subtlety."
The New Yorker

"Always trust a stranger," said David s mother when he returned from Rome. "It s the people you know who let you down."

Half a life later, David is Father Anderton, a Catholic priest with a small parish in Scotland. He befriends Mark and Lisa, rebellious local teenagers who live in a world he barely understands. Their company stirs memories of earlier happiness his days at a Catholic school in Yorkshire, the student revolt in 1960s Oxford, and a choice he once made in the orange groves of Rome. But their friendship also ignites the suspicions and smoldering hatred of a town that resents strangers, and brings Father David to a reckoning with the gathered tensions of past and present.

"Harrowing and beautiful and worth every word."
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

"[A] beautiful, astute novel."
Entertainment Weekly

ANDREW O'HAGAN was born in Glasgow in 1968. Be Near Me is his third novel. His second novel, Personality, received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in London and is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.

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Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR BE NEAR ME

"What a powerful writer Andrew O'Hagan has become . . . Be Near Me is an elegy, a love story, a document of an era, beautifully imagined and composed."--JOYCE CAROL OATES

"As if it is not enough that Andrew O'Hagan can write like an angel, one has to add that he does it in the rare style of an intelligent angel. What a fine novel is Be Near Me."--NORMAN MAILER