Be Near Me

by Andrew O'Hagan

"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.

Genres: Fiction, Scotland, Religion, Literary Fiction, LGBT, Contemporary, Queer

305 pages, Hardcover

First published August 17, 2006

About the author

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 (UK). In 2003, O’Hagan was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. He lives in London, England.

Reviews

[Annet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well... this book... I have to say I understand both the good reviews and the less good reviews. First 30 pages it didn't get me, this book. And some parts of the book, e.g. the elaborate writings of his university period, didn't appeal to me much.
Maybe it is because I'm not a native English speaker, I do read all my books in English, but some parts were hard to get through and to grasp for me.
But after the 30 pages, the book took me in. I like the emotion and sensitivity of the story, of the English priest getting into trouble with youngsters in a small Scottish parish. Although the priest does behave in a strange way, it is fascinating. I liked the people around him in the story more and more, his mother, mrs. Poole, mr. Poole, and those scenes, I was intrigued by the dinner scene with the bishop present. And the emotions of the story got to me after a while and I found the ending of the book beautifully written. And yes, this book is beautifully written indeed. This book is worth that I read it again some day, slowly and maybe taking in more than I did this first time. I doubted long about the rating of this one, but I'm giving it 3,5 and that's 4 stars in my good reads book. By the way I can see a beautiful movie made out of this book with a beautifully talented cast.

[Louis Muñoz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pride Month Read 2023 #5: 2 stars, "It was okay,"... barely.

Part of my education was at Catholic parochial schools, and I was very inspired by the lives of the saints books I read and RE-read. Many of the saints had had a calling, and many also gave up their lives as martyrs. I myself felt a calling during my preteen and early teen years, and while I wasn't also aspiring to some day be a martyr, I was very moved by someone giving up their lives as a martyr.

I bring this up because the main character of this book, "Father David," recklessly gives up his life and livelihood and becomes a kind of martyr, yet it absolutely made no sense, neither in a real-world sense nor at least within the context of this novel. And so while there are some beautiful passages in this book, and there are some interesting things being presented about faith, about purpose, and about some other important life issues, the idea of this priest being so completely out of touch, with himself, with his parishioners, with consequences, with COMMON SENSE, doesn't make me much respect the various authorial choices made and presented. For this and other reasons, I found myself deeply disappointed by the false, unnecessary, and completely nonsensical "martyrdom" of Father David.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have allowed a backlog of unreviewed books to build up again, so I'll keep this short. This is another book from the 2006 longlist, and I found it rather impressive.

It also makes for an interesting comparison with The Testament of Gideon Mack, another book from the same longlist. Both are set in Scotland, both have priests as central characters and both of them are effectively disgraced, at least in the eyes of some of their parishioners.

From there they diverge - O'Hagan's priest is an English Catholic, not a Church of Scotland son of the manse, and his downfall involves a homosexual obsession with a rebellious 15 year old boy. The settings, though both Scottish, are also very different, as this book is set in an industrial town on the coast south of Glasgow that has lost most of its industries.

The other key relationship in Father David Anderton's account/confession is his housekeeper Mrs Poole, who is a friend forced by her conscience to testify against him, and is dying of cancer.

[W · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another one longlisted for the Booker prize.The cover is pretty good too,and that made me pick it up.

As for the story,it is about a Catholic priest and his parish and sexual assault.I wouldn't be the right audience for it anyway,but it was boring too.

What is it about such books that Booker judges love ?

[Warwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andrew O’Hagan is the kind of writer who anchors his work in a lot of excellent primary research – sitting in courtrooms, standing on street corners, inveigling his way into people’s workshops and living rooms. I asked him at a literary festival earlier this year why he writes novels at all, rather than just turning all his research into the kind of long discursive essays in the London Review of Books or The New Yorker that he already does so well. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘only fiction lets me show what someone’s thinking when they’re alone in a room.’

A damn good answer, which I have already stolen more than once. You can certainly see how a story like the one in Be Near Me might represent an attempt to push beyond his experience of sitting through certain criminal trials – an attempt to uncover the human feelings bubbling away behind the easy headlines.

What we have here is a Catholic priest, a low-income parish in the west of Scotland, some troubled delinquent kids, and a whole lot of repressed memories and unacknowledged feelings. The prose style is lyrical and melancholy – as in the books Father Anderton enjoyed as a boy, in which ‘the elements of life coalesced with the beauty of language’. But there might be a suspicion that this beautiful language can be used to avoid being plain about what’s actually going on. The word ‘homosexuality’ doesn’t appear till page 179, and some memories, like those of Anderton’s school days, reach us through some heavy emotional filtering:

There is said to have been abuse at Ampleforth, and the newspapers can now produce individuals who recognise the gleam of lust on every friendly face from the past. I’m sure the individuals are right: there was evidence that some of the monks were troubled and troubling in that particular way, and early Masses in the crypt may have been difficult for some of the boys. But I cannot give in to the notion that the school was a hotbed of abuse, partly because ‘abuse’ did not have the currency in our minds – perhaps in anybody’s mind – that it now enjoys on a worldwide scale. I would never seek to excuse the hurts that lonely men are known sometimes to enact upon their juniors. Yet

—ah, that ‘yet’! It has a lot to do, despite the eminent sensibleness of some of his instincts. This is not a book in the Lolita mode, where we are reading the self-justifications of a monster. What is being explained is something rather milder and more subtle; but we still have to pedal against the narrative voice at times to understand what precisely is happening.

Depth is added by means of a number of harmonies and cross-currents in the story: arguments over involvement in Iraq (the book is set in 2003) clash with reminiscences of marches against Vietnam in the 70s, while the feelings prompted by the young people in Anderton’s parish bring back memories of his first experiences of love at university in Oxford. There are also many thoughtful reflections on the Church, seen here in elegiac but troubling terms as ‘a beautiful hiding place’.

The one problem that the book struggles with is the plausibility of Anderton’s behaviour in the first place. No amount of backstory or inner torment ever quite convinces you of his willingness to do some of the things he does here, which anyone can see are personally destructive and professionally suicidal. But in the end Be Near Me, with its gorgeous prose, is very much like a book one of the characters within it is reading, which, as Anderton reflects, is really about ‘the lengths people will go to in order to remain unhappy’.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Maureen Corrigan's review last summer and couldn't resist this book. I have never had the experience with a main character where I was intrigued and interested and then repulsed and resigned. I think Corrigan is right, this is a meditative novel, and the language is so beautiful that it's startling. I was in awe of several passages in a way that I don't remember being with a modern novel. I'm still mulling over what the author wants us to know, learn from the character, and unsure if it's about hiding in grief, using academia, intellect and culture as a way to avoid life and real relationships, or merely explaining how loneliness can create a kind of reckless abandonment for the self. In addition there's this whole other discussion about faith and socialism, how God functions as a bridge between art and life. I can't wait to explore the authors other novels, but I have to digest this one.

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a such an amazing book. i was a bit perplexed at the beginning, feeling culture-shocked (those scots are weird!), quite unable to relate to the protagonist. the writing, too, felt too beautiful, if you know what i mean: too full of gorgeousness, too packed, too deep. but then i started feeling the terrible ache of the story, even though it's a story as remote from mine as a story could be (or is it?). o'hagan makes the hurt, the terrible longing, the doom of loss, so palpable, by the end i could barely stand it.

*** SPOILERS ***

father david is a gay man who grew up as a catholic boy and soon fell in love with the church, the rituals, the smells, the discipline, and the tenderness some of us find in the catholic life. he also, in his own way, fell in love with god. a scot who was brought up in england, he returns to scotland when he's assigned to a small parish scarred by xenophobia (if the english count as xenoi), disaffection, endemic loutishness, and, in the case of the young people, drugs and binge-drinking. unlike his parishioners, with whom he finds very difficult and not terribly attractive to interact, david is a deeply sophisticated man, in love with literature, the arts, vintage wine, good food, and beautiful things. he went to oxford and then, one supposes for his seminary, to italy, where one day he spent two hours in a museum rapt by the amazing beauty of bernini's david. at oxford, he was part of a small group of guys who fancied themselves the effete heirs of WWI heroes and spent their afternoons quizzing each other on proust without the least self-consciousness.

in his new parish, david does the best he can. he is mild and he is friendly. but the townies hate this englishman with his soft manners, and david finds refuge with his housekeeper, a beautifully portrayed woman who loves life's good things as much as david and enjoys semi-intellectual sparrings with her priest, and two youngsters, mark and lisa. there is no obvious, conscious rescue instinct in david's hanging out with the kids. they are bad kids who drink too much, vandalize things, are totally adrift and unmoored in their families, and use plenty of drugs. they like david and text him at all hours to ask him to go join them. david always does. when they do something bad he tells them that it's bad and doesn't join in -- in other words, he always remains the responsible adult, if not the priest -- but there is an irresistible pull that draws david to the kids, in particular young, charismatic, beautiful mark.

this is not a simplistic novel and there is no label, i feel, that would do it justice. but let's just say, for convenience, that it latches onto the theme of the church sex abuse scandal. david and mark spend a night at the rectory, drinking, smoking dope, and popping ecstasy pills, and then david gives mark a kiss that mark rejects, and that's it. when the housekeeper arrives she finds them stoned on the couch, holding hands, listening to music.

the scandal excites the town to a feverish pitch (mark tells his dad) and david is forced to flee to edinburgh.

i won't add anything. the conclusion is really moving. david's reckoning, his efforts at lining up the chess pieces so as to gain some sort of understanding of what distinguishes right from wrong are beautiful. i grew extremely fond of david. he's a guy i'd like to meet and, if he let me, befriend.

the book is a long, philosophical, devastating look at desire and aloneness. i loved david's profundity, his moral honesty, his courage, his dignity, his intelligence, his quietness (which his housekeeper entirely attributes to his englishness), his lack of desire to launch himself in strong pronouncements of any sort, his willingness to simply go along.

and then there's the landscape, so harsh, so alive. i couldn't live there, but i can totally see how, if that's where you were born, you couldn't live anywhere else.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you hear that the story is about a Catholic priest, you can't help but fear that you know where you are going. But this delicately written, complicated story takes you many other places. Father David does not fit in in the insular, conservative Scottish town where he has come to be near his ailing mother. He would have stuck out simply for being Catholic in the mostly Protestant north, but his being English and Oxford-educated set him even further apart. The writing is gorgeous, if slightly obtuse at times, and the main character is deeply flawed, but somehow still appealing, if not always sympathetic. Highly recommended.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant novel examining a host of issues, which to go by many of the reviews on Goodreads are issues that totally passed most reviewers by as they concentrated on ensuring they voiced their own moral superiority. They certainly don't appear to feel it necessary to listen to what an author says.

The book is beautifully written and full of wonderful insights and subtleties. I am not going to rehash what the novel's storyline is, read the synopsis from the publishers, but I will say it was brilliant portrayal of all that is wrong with celibacy and the priesthood and what a cramped hiding place it was as institution dedicated to repression and the preservation of an empty and dessicated system which feared truth as much as it feared change. Let me be clear, there are no monsters in this story only flawed humans. If you are looking for justifications for anything you won't find them here. The moral failures of the Catholic church are the moral failures of a system and society that fed off each other.

Mr. O'Hagan is an immensely talented writer and this is a novel that is close to being perfect.

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the weirdest experiences I've ever had with a priest.

I think O'Hagan has pulled off something truly extraordinary here, but even as I write that, I'm not really sure. I'm not feeling on particularly solid ground when it comes to my interpretation of this character or this novel overall. That is to say, I could have it totally wrong.

Wrong or not, I found Father David to be one of the most opaque, annoying, morally vacant, insufferably snotty, self-delusional, lazy-thinking, accountability-denying central characters I've ever met.

And so is his damn mother.

Does O'Hagan intend that I should feel sorry for him? I don't know. I know I don't.

Father David is a very bad priest. Not only because of the assault he's accused of committing; that he did commit (we see it from his own POV; we know it to be a fact);. He's a bad priest from several different angles - most particularly, because he lacks any strong moral centre or conviction (I suppose that means "true calling") that enables him to counsel and console, spiritually, effectively, with humility and authenticity and genuine connection, his flock.

He is arrogant; he is consumed with worldly things (fine wines, classical music, etc); he lacks the ability to engage beyond the most superficial interaction (the latter which Mrs. Poole repeatedly calls him out on. She is a fabulous character.)

And he's a bad priest who finally admits - in a moment of uncharacteristically accurate self-reflection - that he had used the priesthood as a place to hide out since he couldn't, didn't, never does get his personal act together.

He never chooses, he just goes along with. He has so few strongly-held convictions, not political, not spiritual, not even sexual, that he can easily be led down whatever path looks the most attractive based on the flimsiest incentives. He can't say no - not even, or rather especially not, to himself. He is a child, with no ability to delay gratification or exert self-control -- another fact that he acknowledges, eventually; such acknowledgement as empty and devoid of meaning as every other bit of self-knowledge or feeling he learns or experiences.

He mourns and romanticizes his past, yet even when reflecting that that mourning and romanticism is misplaced (or at least, self-destructive), and that he has been both ignorant and hurtful, he never learns from it.

And here is where my own Scots-based puritanism comes to a full boil. He never, never, never takes accountability for his actions. No, I really mean it ... this next is a spoiler HE WAS 15 YEARS OLD, YA DUMB FUCK!! He was 15 years old, and he was deeply troubled, and you knew that and exactly why, since you counselled his dad (badly, no doubt). You were in a position of power, and you abused that power. And I don't care if you now, finally, have the courage to speak the truth, no, rather: your truth, in a court of law. That is BULLSHIT - you want forgiveness, you want to confess - because that's easy, that's your comfort zone. You think that by putting YOURSELF through that public humiliation, that flagellation, you will earn that forgiveness. But you will not -- you will not, because even at the end of it, you cling to this: "'I don't mind saying I fell for him. I don't mind saying I would have slept with him. I admit to being the most stupid person on earth. But I am not a paedophile or anything of that sort and I won't agree to it being called assault.'" p 222

The central event that in most novels would either cause the formerly-obtuse to see the light, or justice to be served or denied in some plot-pivoting way, causes this insufferable fool of a priest (and his mother) to go to the opera to forget about it.

I mean, I wanted to strangle him. I was as one with the crowds of haggis- and profanity-spitting blue-collar Scots in his parish crying for his head on a stick.

SO: *some* authors would play up that dynamic - because the haggis- and profanity-spitting Scots of the small town (racist, violent, xenophobic) were also behaving pretty reprehensibly, weren't they? Many authors would be using the character and his personal crisis as a way to make the reader take a side and then see it through to its logical conclusion. But deftly, O'Hagan makes it not about Father David or the central event, but about how morally relative everything suddenly is.

What positions do you hold, and how do you know that you're not any more a hypocrite than he/she/them? O'Hagan is interested in that question very much, and that he gets at it through this character and this event is really clever and quite a feat (the danger of not sticking with this novel long enough to see where it was going is high, I think--there's a good 160 pages of character-building and back-plotting before the event and the true character of this priest becomes explicit).

The moral relativism of things - the war in Iraq, racism, feminism, environmentalism, "in-groupism" of all sorts, all of which seem(ed) like side issues - suddenly become as important, or more important, than Father David's crisis. Father David is the perfect embodiment of moral relativity: in his own opinions (waffling; muddy) and in his actions (passive; sinful more in thought than deed). He is an ideal character if what you want to illustrate is not the moral failings of a priest, but the vast political and spiritual grey area between the poles, and how we struggle and vacillate in our attempt to navigate them. How our own past shapes our responses. And so, who are we to judge? Where does compassion and empathy really lie? Where, exactly, is the truth?

One (this reader, anyway) also realizes that we lack spiritual and moral leaders, now more than ever, in times that truly call for them. So Father David also embodies the disintegration of the moral certainty and force of the Church in people's lives. There is a companion theme here about parenting, and its similar descent as a force of good - as giving shape and guidance to young lives and where, without it, people end up. Educators and politicians, in a minor way, take the same drubbing.

Still, there are some truths, there is a moral ground that is pretty stable, pretty neutral (in a religio-political sense), pretty rock solid - and there are some characters (Mrs. Poole and her husband, in particular) who do exhibit clarity and decisiveness in speaking these truths and occupying that ground. The court room scene - without being all "tell-y", thank you very much Mr. O'Hagan - strips the acts from their interpretation, and is unequivocal in stating the right and the wrong of it (the law makes out pretty well, here, as potentially a stabilizing force of moral clarity. Hmmmm. Scratch at that opinion a little and it may unravel, but I'll put it out there...).

Thus, O'Hagan earns that 4th star (not 5, not yet at least) - for writing such a brilliant character portrait and a novel that really had very little to do with that character and his personal crisis. Then again, I could have it all wrong.

[Kirsty Darbyshire · Rating 1 out of 5]

Odd book. I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Firstly, I probably wouldn't have got past the first few pages if I hadn't have been stuck with it for the first 70 pages or so (toddler napping at the seaside and nothing else to read or do). And in the middle I couldn't much have cared about what was happening because I put it down for about a week. The end though, I found really quite interesting, the central character's life has fallen to bits and that's more interesting than the bit before where it was falling to bits.

The narrator is a Catholic priest and the writing feels very old fashioned. I thought I was in a bygone age, and references to shopping in Ikea or terrorism threw me out of time. This is kind of the point though, it works quite well. I just didn't find the largest part of the book very entertaining. Definitely an odd one.

I might try something else by the author because I think he's probably quite good, I just didn't get on with this book really.

[Amy Holstead · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started as a 3⭐️ but ended as a 4⭐️. Which was similar to how I felt about “Mayflies” except the ending didn’t quite blow me away in the same way, despite being heartfelt. The storyline was a lot simpler in this book, with a small cast of characters and an introspective narrative. Even so I felt I didn’t connect to the priest, although perhaps that was the point as he was meant to be a lost soul.

I enjoyed the strong sense of Scottish childhood which was definitely the highlight for me. Also there were some very pretty lines. “Love is not a matter of choice but an obdurate fact of surrender” really resonated❤️

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

No surprises, no entirely lovable characters, no theoretical pyrotechnics... ah. Like a nice shower at the end of the day. O'Hagan's writing reaches near Anthony Powell levels of wonderful, he's even-handed on a topic which must tempt almost everyone to religious-right or radical-left levels of hyperbole, his characters lodge in your mind, and, I confess, he basically deals with issues that are extremely important to me: how do you combine the wish for equality and justice with a belief in the absolute importance of high culture? Yes, I too am both a Marcellist and a Bombastic. And I think most interesting people are. So this is not only deeply affecting, but pretty powerful intellectually. Maybe one day I'll up it to five stars, although the trite 'love will conquer all' 'the personal is the political' stuff kind of itches my craw.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written, intense novel. It's about a middle-aged priest serving in a parish in a struggling west Scotland town who (deliberately?) throws away all that he has built in a moment of recklessness. It's set in 2003- just after the US invasion of Iraq and travels back in time to 1968 London, when the main character was a student at Oxford and falls in love for the first, perhaps only, time.

It's sad, tragic, frustrating, fascinating- very quiet and deliberate, with an odd sense of hope and life despite its tragic twists.

[Tonya · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were certainly moments of brilliance in this prize winner, but I was disappointed overall by both the story and the writing. The story traces one man's journey as a Catholic priest in a Xenophobic Scotland, it traces his friendships, history and ultimate downfall in a sexual assault drama. I didn't like David, to me he had a superiority complex and he was one-dimensional, lacking in depth. That said, the writing, in parts is breath-taking and my disappointment maybe isolated. Try it and let me know what you think.

[nal · Rating 1 out of 5]

Da moze 0 zvjezdica bilo bi

[Steve lovell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 2006 novel is this reader's first by Andrew O'Hagan. Hopefully it will not be the last. Essentially it is a three-parter; the first two sections building to a shattering finale in the last. By the time that presents itself I had succumbed to being so hooked it was unputdownable until the whole sorry story had played out to the last page.

Glaswegian AO'H was born in 1968 and is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde. By '91 he was on the staff of the 'London Review of Books' and four years later published his first fiction product, 'The Missing'. It and subsequent tomes have been nominated for all sorts of gongs including the Booker and Whitbread. This work won the Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction in 2008. 'Be Near Me' has also been adapted as a play. O'Hagan has written and presented a television series on Bobbie Burns for the Beeb and has dabbled in writing for the stage. This guy has serious literary chops.

In the first part of 'Be Near Me' the scene is set. We meet 56 year old Catholic priest David Anderton, newly transferred to a tough Ayrshire parish, but we find he is half-hearted and somewhat removed from his duties. He seems disappointed in his calling but unable to release his mind from the need to be succoured by the church. Anderton has the necessary feeling for his flock, but struggles to make a connection with them. He is, above all, hungering for something more – the type of relationship he once had way back when – one that is no longer is possible given the constraints he labours under. He is lonely. In this fragile state of mind he is ready for an 'adventure' before it is all too late. That enters in the form of street savvy teenagers, feisty Lisa and charismatic skateboarder Mark. Very soon he finds himself part and parcel of their escapades, occasionally the ringleader. For a while we are unsure which one will bring him down as we are in no doubt this flirtation, with the dark side of the real world, cannot end well.

Now we've ascertained the situation he is in and which of the duo brings him to grief, we backtrack onto a different path. The author takes us to the tale of the love of the priest's life and the event that caused him to fully turn to his god and the celibate way.

Once that has been conveyed we return to Father David's fall from grace. Although it is debatable whether he committed the crime in the true sense of the accusation, the priest knows, had it all played out as he intended, he would have done so. Ergo he places self-imposed barriers to escaping what is about to befall him. We wonder if there's an ultimate price to pay.

As he travels down his path to self destruction we see the strength and loyalty of the women in his life – Lisa to some extent, his novelist mother and his ill-married house-keeper, a vital cog in the case against him. They are all wonderful creations as characters, as is the latter's deeply flawed spouse who is somewhat the hero of the piece.

I do not know where in the Bible Jesus preaches that to fully serve the god he believes in one has to enter a life devoid of sexual intimacy with another. If he did, then that is at variance with the Jesus I know. Of course, for many, like our main protagonist, being human they fail to measure up and as a result the Catholic church is now in deep do-dos. Once litigation takes over in the aftermath of the various enquiries, commissions and investigations in place world-wide, the institution may well be bought to its knees financially. To me it is an inhumane and self-defeating imposition and O'Hagan glaringly, as well as artfully, presents the troubled face of all this. Even though we look at Anderton as foolhardy for taking one last stab revisiting what he experienced so long ago, we can all relate to his fundamental need.

[Andy Quan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because I'd raved about O'Hagan's Marilyn Monroe book (as narrated by her dog, Maf), a new literary friend loaned me one of his favourite books, 'Be Near Me'. To be frank, I was a bit confused by the whole experience. There is an immediate distancing because the narrator can be unlikeable, partly because of his own lack of self-knowledge. It's evident early on that this fault is going to get him in trouble, and it's like watching a slow motion car crash.

Thematically, there was also distancing. As a Canadian living in Australia, the complications of the class divides of the United Kingdom are often beyond me, and this is something that is a key theme of the book: privilege vs non-privilege; education vs non-educated; wealth vs poverty, and all of this on top of a clear English vs Scottish rivalry. And while I've certainly read enough stories about the British education system (so many novels set in Oxford and Cambridge, and their environs!), I feel distanced from that milieu as well. It comes through in the narrator's attachment to ideas, history, philosophy, fine wine, and appreciation for classical music and art. I think of myself as worldly and well-read, but often, the narration of 'Be Near Me' made me feel like I was on the wrong side of the tracks, one of the ruffians in smalltown Scotland.

By why should this be? To say that I relate more to 50s North America, Hollywood and a narrator who is, for godsake, a dog, in the O'Hagan novel I loved, seems ludicrious. And in fact, I think what O'Hagan's novel actually demands is objectivity. He offers an explanation for why the character gets himself into so much trouble, the more sympathetic and in-fact wiser character is his cleaner who values knowledge but comes from a modest background; he draws a truly diverse set of characters who cross classes and political ideologies.

All of this is amidst beautiful writing, and an urgency and narrative that drives the book, which I read rather quickly, considering my reading speed these days, slowed down by TV and other distractions. So, while themes of class divide and religion didn't engage me, and the consequences of a repressed sexuality were not new to me, all in all, I'm impressed with O'Hagan's inhabiting of his narrators, his willingness to tackle big issues and some lovely writing, imbued with not a small measure of melancholy and nostalgia.

But if you've read this far, and haven't read his other book, 'The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe', please do so. It's amazing.

[Tundra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel has vivid and powerful descriptions of a Scottish town that is struggling to hold onto its past glory and good times and is now a place where life is difficult, money is hard to come by and young people have few life choices or opportunities. In comes a catholic priest, Father David, who is an outsider and facing his own crisis about his life choices - you can feel that his world is about to implode. Despite his unacceptable actions and his somewhat pompous behaviour I still felt some empathy for him because he was able to acknowledge his wrongs. This book was able to create a realistic three dimensional world with all its problematic flaws and provoke thoughts about how we judge people when we don’t know their life circumstances and what it means to belong or be an outsider in a community.

[Tracy Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this novel (I know well the environs where O'Hagan grew up and have the greatest respect for his many achievements), but I just didn't. The reason is that I didn't like being in the room with the main character who I would describe as an emotionally immature, self-absorbed, narcissistic and dangerous priest. Of course, perhaps that is the attraction. Who wants to read about good people. Where's the conflict in that?

To summarise briefly, the central figure, Father David Anderton, an Oxford educated priest, is posted to a fictitional small-town parish in the west of Scotland. The narration switches from present day Scotland to Anderton's past. He is a man with an appreciation of the artistic things in life, art, literature, furnishings, and a conoisseur of fine wines. O'Hagan cleverly sets up empathy for the character by placing him in a setting that has many flaws, including sectarianism, bigotry, poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, violence and misogyny. In one scene, Anderton is on the receiving end of anti-Catholic abuse when he passes by the masonic lodge. I know this culture well, and I know what it feels like to not share those prejudices and feel trapped by them.

However, with Anderton, things soon take a darker turn. In his role at the local school, he befriends some teenagers and gradually oversteps his boundaries, plying one of the boys with alcohol and attempting to seduce him. O'Hagan takes us over the line as a priest, whom one might assume is just a little unconventional and free-thinking, behaves inappropriately towards those who are in his trust. I suspect O'Hagan's intention might have been to choose a narrator who takes the reader into uncomfortable territory. As a reader, I experienced the uncomfortable process of being groomed, lulled into a false sense of security, by the writer. I could see the clever set-up as O'Hagan takes the literary trope of unreliable narrator and runs with it. However, the effect, for me, was that I couldn't figure out exactly what he was trying to say...

As the trial ensues, we find ourselves in the head of a person who totally fails to see the inappropriateness of their behaviour. That, to me, seemed accurate to this kind of profile. On the other hand, towards the end of the book there is a scene where he meets his victim in a shop and they have a friendly interaction. Is the victim also unable to see he's a victim? Or is O'Hagan questioning whether Anderton acted inappropriately at all? Yes, the protagonist is a gay man who made a completely bizzare decision to become a priest (the novel did not convince me why he did so). Yes, he has a questionable relationship with his mother, an inflated ego and an alcohol problem. Yes, he loved and lost another man (and still became a priest). And yes, the schoolboy he attempts to seduce is most likely also gay or bisexual. If O'Hagan was trying to open up the controversial discussion surrounding gay relationships between older men and young boys, it did not work for me. I was reminded of the NAMBLA organisation i.e. predators. No amount of poetic or prize-winning writing could make me comfortable with Anderton or feel his actions were okay or that his actions are simply misunderstood.

In a less brutal way, this novel meanders around the same territory as Lolita. Both narrators are predators, only concerned with their own needs. My advice? Watch out for them.

[Aoife Cassidy McM · Rating 3 out of 5]

I selected this book while browsing for an audiobook in a hurry on BorrowBox (library app) for a car journey, trusting I was in safe hands with Andrew O’Hagan, author of several books including Mayflies, which I loved. Be Near Me was nominated for the Booker Prize when it was published.

Set in Ayrshire, Scotland around the time of the Iraq War and the elimination of Saddam Hussein by the West, it features Fr David Anderton, an English Catholic priest who arrives into a small Scottish community and is given a reluctant welcome.

He befriends two local young people, Mark and Lisa, both underprivileged and prone to playing truant from school. As he gets to know them and becomes embroiled in their lives, the question of who is actually gaining from the friendship arises, and a controversy brings the friendship to an abrupt end.

I found it hard at times to stomach Fr David, a gay man who sought out religious life following a tragic loss in his student days. He struck me as rather pathetic, self-obsessed and hypocritical, but also lonely and brokenhearted.

The book is very well-written but in the second half, it comes into its own as Fr David’s crisis comes into sharp focus. Well-narrated and with interesting expositions on faith, love, ideology, class and war, it’s an enjoyable, literary read albeit not one I’d be rushing to recommend to everyone. 3.5/5 ⭐️

[Siobhan Markwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A catholic priest in his early sixties takes up a new living in a working class district in Scotland's Western lowlands, with a dwindling congregation alongside some entrenched Orange traditions. The industry that sustained the older generation has died leaving the adults searching for meaning variously in art, gardening, football and the local pub. Against this backdrop, the younger generation founder and resort to the usual pastimes of illicit drinking and drug taking, unsure of what they require from their elders. The priest forms an unlikely friendship with some of the wilder youths and does his best to accept them as they are and provide them with experiences that will shine a little light into their quite ordinary lives, a game of backgammon here and a boat trip there but, to run with religious imagery, there's always a sense of his throwing pearls to swine.

This brave and beautiful book deserves to be sipped slowly like the fine wines the priest savours with his mother and small group of loyal friends. This isn't a book for a recovering alcoholic by any means. As an English man of a cultured cast of mind, he revisits both joyous and painful episodes in his personal journey leaving the reader to reflect on how well his passion for good and moral living has served him and how far he's managed to reconcile his socialist beliefs, his instinct for good living and his attraction to religious self-denial and martyrdom.

Be Near Me truly is one of those books that defy you to start again at the beginning once you reach the end just to swim among the fine sentences and the almost underwater glow of reflected light O'Hagan conjures on the page. It's poetic without being overworked and full of fine and gentle sentiment that's utterly believable and encompasses the tragedy we are all forced to bear as we try to live our best lives among the challenges of place and time and our bodies' own frailties. Just beautiful.

[Karlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel takes place in Scotland with flashbacks to a priest's days at Oxford. Although born in Scotland, he sounds English and encounters prejudice against both priests and the English in his small parish. The plot surprised me and kept me reading as I learned more about the lonely priest, his past love, his family and why he behaved so strangely with his teenage friends.

[Craig Smillie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sad, beautifully written novel about loneliness compounded by the restricting demands of church discipline and celibacy. The desperate prayer of the title is heartbreaking as is the reverie of the one fulfilling - but lost - relationship in the central character’s life.

This is why O’Hagan’s writing often gets the descriptor elegiac! Again: beautiful.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn’t check what the story was about before ordering it in. Apparently, it is about a Catholic priest and his parish and sexual assault, so I won’t read it.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got a slow start with this one but it grew on me as I read. The main character is a priest with an assignment in Ireland and befriends some less than angelic teens with disasterous results. The ending was very interesting and I am still finding myself thinking about it.

[Anthony Watson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really struggled with this one and even now I'm not sure what to make of it. I don't mind main characters who are unlikable but this one just made me feel uncomfortable, (a priest in his fifties striking up a friendship with teenagers), and I didn't enjoy spending time in his company. Maybe it's a commentary on the clash of privilege and snobbery with working class values (his friends at Oxford are very twattish but the teenagers are stereotypically awful too) but if the ending was supposed to invoke some kind of sympathy for the protagonist it didn't work for me.

[Ruairidh Maclean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book very well written. It speaks a lot to Scottish culture, and more widely, bourgeois intellectualism. The main character is, I think, repulsive and using his bourgeois intellectualism as a shield for his repellent actions. I really enjoyed the book for its prose but it left me with a distinct feeling of discomfort. I don’t quite know what to make of it, and from reading reviews from others, I’m not the only one in this boat. Definitely worth reading, it reminded me a bit of a imitation of a Mcewan novel.

[Gillian Norrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably more 4.5. Loved this book. Beautifully written and achingly sad. It probably does better with a Scottish reader though as it is very nuanced. While it was frustrating at times to understand Father David, I think it is his flaws which makes his character richer and more tragic. I would have given 5 stars but I think the Oxford part was too drawn out.

[Brid Drake · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5