Be Near Me

This novel was long listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2006.

Be Near Me tells the story of David Anderton, a Catholic priest born in Edinburgh and educated in England who is assigned to a parish in Dalgarnock, a decaying Irish town with different residents sympathetic to the Orange or IRA causes. Anderton, though, takes no interest in his parishioners, enduring their ill will towards him. He's been grieving for thirty years for the man he loved who died in an auto accident. The only people in the city with whom he spends time are the local teenagers who live life on the edge, committing petty crimes and indulging in drugs. He senses the life in them that he misses, and finds himself attracted to one of them, Mark. After a night of drinking, Ecstasy, and dancing, he kisses Mark. This act turns his parishioners on him, providing a conduit for their anger, as they accuse him of being a paedophile. Andrew O'Hagan's novel has received positive reviews (and a Booker nomination) with The Guardian saying, "This is a nuanced, intense and complex treatment of a sad and simple story. Read it twice."

Andrew O'Hagan was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1968 and read English at the University of Strathclyde. He is a contributing editor to the London Review of Books and Granta magazine.In his acclaimed first book, The Missing (1995), O'Hagan wrote about his own childhood and told the stories of parents whose children had disappeared. The book was shortlisted for the Esquire Award, the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award, and the McVities Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year award. Part of the book was adapted for radio and television as Calling Bible John and won a BAFTA award. Our Fathers (1999), his first novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award. The book tells the story of young Scot Jamie Bawn and a visit to his dying grandfather that leads him to uncover the truth about his family's past.Andrew O'Hagan's essay 'The End of British Farming', originally published in the London Review of Books, was published as a short book in 2001. His new book, Personality (2003), is about a 13-year-old girl with a beautiful singing voice growing up above a chip shop on the Scottish island of Bute and making ready to realise her family's dream of fame. It is the winner of the 2003 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction).In 2003 Andrew O'Hagan was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'. In 2004 he edited The Weekenders: Adventures in Calcutta, a collection of various writers' accounts of Kolkata. His latest novel is Be Near Me (2006).