Be Near Me

Longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. The eagerly anticipated third novel from Andrew O'Hagan, one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2003 and author of the Booker-shortlisted Our Fathers and Personality. In a small Scottish parish, an English priest is stalked by the fear of scandal, class hatred and lost ideals. Over the Spring and Summer of 2003, Father David becomes friends with two young people, Mark and Lisa: by the year's end his life is the focus of public hysteria. As he looks back to his childhood, and to Oxford in the fever of student revolt, Father David begins to reconsider the central events of his life, and to see what may have happened to the political hopes of his generation. Meanwhile, religious warfare breaks out on his doorstep. 2007 Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award