Be Near Me
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The Canadian debut of the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Our Fathers.
In a small Scottish parish in a post-industrial town by the sea, an English priest with secrets in his own past becomes stalked by the fear of scandal, class hatred, and lost ideals.
When Father David Anderton takes over a Scottish parish, not everyone is ready to accept him. Over the spring and summer of 2003, Father David befriends two young, troubled students, Mark and Lisa. Their natural energy and response to the world bring out his own feelings of protectiveness, as well as longings for parts of himself — and his past — that he has come to lose. This relationship and the way it develops leads to the book’s climax, as Father David finds himself facing accusations of abuse.
Told from the point of view of Father David, we feel, beneath his need for order and emotional distance, the passionate undercurrents that have brought him to where he is. In this riveting novel, where every word counts, Andrew O’Hagan’s brilliant writing leads us into a story of art and politics, love and faith. Be Near Me possesses a depth of feeling and a literary artistry that render it O’Hagan’s masterpiece.
From the Hardcover edition.
About this Author
ANDREW O'HAGAN was born in Glasgow. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize, was voted one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, and he won the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Editor-at-Large of the London Review of Books and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Reviews
"An exquisitely written portrait of ambiguity in a time that is much blighted with intolerance. This novel pushes black and white aside and insists on a diligent and unwavering examination of grey. . . . O'Hagan is a formidable and witty stylist who never puts a foot wrong. . . . . [A] profound book."
--Globe and Mail
"This burnished gem of a novel has drama, emotional resonance and intellectual power enough to recall one's favorite 19th-century writers. . . . Throughout O'Hagan enchants with his effortless prose, vivid characters and David's uncanny asides . . . a heartrending tour de force."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"With Be Near Me, O'Hagan has weaved an intricate, complex tale that encourages us to take a close look at the inner workings of desire, art and religion."
--Montreal Gazette
"It is hard to imagine a better, more beautiful novel being published this year."
--The Spectator
"Be Near Me is an elegy, a love story, a document of an era, beautifully imagined and composed."
--Joyce Carol Oates
"What a fine novel is Be Near Me."
--Norman Mailer
"A generous, wonderfully observed novel, and the best O'Hagan has written yet; it is also one of the few truly essential works of fiction to emerge from this country during the past 20 years or more."
--The Telegraph
"Andrew O'Hagan proves himself an original prose stylist, a lord of the language. . . . Incantatory."
-- Wall Street Journal
"O'Hagan makes the heavy light, the ugly near to lovely through an unusual combination of language, poetic in its imagery on the one hand and ruthlessly sharp and contemporary in idiom on the other."
-- Spectator
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