Andrew O'Hagan - 'Be Near Me' - Spiegeltent, Wed 1 Nov, 6pm
Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan
‘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 Be Near Me is.’ Norman Mailer
When an English priest takes over a small Scottish parish, not everyone is ready to accept him. He makes friends with two local youths, Mark and Lisa, and clashes with a world he can barely understand. The town seems to grow darker each night. Fate comes calling and before the summer is out his quiet life is the focus of public hysteria.Father David looks back to find a Lancashire childhood. He remembers a lost father and a grand school for Catholic boys. He finds 1960s Oxford in the heat of student revolt and recalls a choice he once made in the orange groves of Rome.Be Near Me is a story of art and politics, love and change, and a book about the way we live now. Trapped in class hatreds, threatened by personal flaws, Father David begins to discover what happened to the ideals of his generation. Meanwhile a religious war is unfolding on his doorstep ...
Andrew O’Hagan was born in Glasgow in 1968. His first book, The Missing, was published in 1995 and shortlisted for the Esquire/Waterstone’s/Apple Non-Fiction Award. Our Fathers, his debut novel, was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize. His second novel, Personality, was published in 2003 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. In January of that year Granta named him one of the Best of Young British Novelists and in April he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He lives in London.
Andrew O’Hagan is available for interview and to write pieces. For any further information, contact Publicity Manager, Bomi Odufunade on 020 7465 7542 or email: bomi.odufunade@faber.co.uk
Praise for Be Near Me
‘What a powerful writer Andrew O’Hagan has become, in four remarkably varied, yet singularly riveting and lyrical books. Be Near Me is an elegy, a love story, a document of an era, beautifully imagined and composed.’ Joyce Carol Oates
‘Be Near Me is a work of art. I was just bowled over by it. I was shuddered into emotion by Father David, as I was calmed by the aesthetics of what was happening in the book. Be Near Me does Scotland and contemporary literature a dignity it doesn’t deserve. I am not at all in doubt now, I know someone who has written high art. This book bedazzles with its utter and profound beauty.’ Alan Warner
‘It’s marvellous, really marvellous. Full of humour and tragedy and easily (I think) the best thing Andrew O’Hagan has done. It straddles two completely different worlds and sensibilities with an authority no other British novelist could manage at the moment.’ Jonathan Coe
‘Be Near Me is such an excellent book. It is a wonderful book. Awfully moving, and riveting, and here and there just unbelievably original.’ Patrick McGrath
‘There is no page on which there is not something surprising or quotable or pleasurable or thought-provoking. The Tennyson does its job – I keep saying it to myself now – and coupled with the first paragraph is one of the best beginnings I can think of – so sure in tone and so unlike anyone else’s writing. It is a book with a real hinterland, a sense of the cultures that inform it – there is so much in it that is sharp and so much that is sad.’ Hilary Mantel
‘Be Near Me is marvellously good. It’s just beautifully realised – very sad, funny and haunting.’ Richard Eyre
‘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 Be Near Me is.’ Norman Mailer
When an English priest takes over a small Scottish parish, not everyone is ready to accept him. He makes friends with two local youths, Mark and Lisa, and clashes with a world he can barely understand. The town seems to grow darker each night. Fate comes calling and before the summer is out his quiet life is the focus of public hysteria.Father David looks back to find a Lancashire childhood. He remembers a lost father and a grand school for Catholic boys. He finds 1960s Oxford in the heat of student revolt and recalls a choice he once made in the orange groves of Rome.Be Near Me is a story of art and politics, love and change, and a book about the way we live now. Trapped in class hatreds, threatened by personal flaws, Father David begins to discover what happened to the ideals of his generation. Meanwhile a religious war is unfolding on his doorstep ...
Andrew O’Hagan was born in Glasgow in 1968. His first book, The Missing, was published in 1995 and shortlisted for the Esquire/Waterstone’s/Apple Non-Fiction Award. Our Fathers, his debut novel, was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize. His second novel, Personality, was published in 2003 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. In January of that year Granta named him one of the Best of Young British Novelists and in April he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He lives in London.
Andrew O’Hagan is available for interview and to write pieces. For any further information, contact Publicity Manager, Bomi Odufunade on 020 7465 7542 or email: bomi.odufunade@faber.co.uk
Praise for Be Near Me
‘What a powerful writer Andrew O’Hagan has become, in four remarkably varied, yet singularly riveting and lyrical books. Be Near Me is an elegy, a love story, a document of an era, beautifully imagined and composed.’ Joyce Carol Oates
‘Be Near Me is a work of art. I was just bowled over by it. I was shuddered into emotion by Father David, as I was calmed by the aesthetics of what was happening in the book. Be Near Me does Scotland and contemporary literature a dignity it doesn’t deserve. I am not at all in doubt now, I know someone who has written high art. This book bedazzles with its utter and profound beauty.’ Alan Warner
‘It’s marvellous, really marvellous. Full of humour and tragedy and easily (I think) the best thing Andrew O’Hagan has done. It straddles two completely different worlds and sensibilities with an authority no other British novelist could manage at the moment.’ Jonathan Coe
‘Be Near Me is such an excellent book. It is a wonderful book. Awfully moving, and riveting, and here and there just unbelievably original.’ Patrick McGrath
‘There is no page on which there is not something surprising or quotable or pleasurable or thought-provoking. The Tennyson does its job – I keep saying it to myself now – and coupled with the first paragraph is one of the best beginnings I can think of – so sure in tone and so unlike anyone else’s writing. It is a book with a real hinterland, a sense of the cultures that inform it – there is so much in it that is sharp and so much that is sad.’ Hilary Mantel
‘Be Near Me is marvellously good. It’s just beautifully realised – very sad, funny and haunting.’ Richard Eyre
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