Be Near Me
2006
First Published
3.45
Average Rating
305
Number of Pages
"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.
Avg Rating
3.45
Number of Ratings
1,398
5 STARS
16%
4 STARS
36%
3 STARS
30%
2 STARS
13%
1 STARS
5%
goodreads
Author
Andrew O'Hagan
Author · 18 books
Andrew O'Hagan, FRSL (born 1968) is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. He is the author of the novels Our Fathers, Personality, and Be Near Me, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, and The Guardian (U.K.). In 2003, O’Hagan was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. He lives in London, England.
