|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HELP | |
|
  $13.25 List price:
HARDCOVER, USED
Ships in 1 to 3 days
More copies of this ISBN:Be Near Meby Andrew O'Hagan
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The Canadian debut of the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Our Fathers. In a small Scottish parish in a post-industrial town by the sea, an English priest with secrets in his own past becomes stalked by the fear of scandal, class hatred, and lost ideals. When Father David Anderton takes over a Scottish parish, not everyone is ready to accept him. Over the spring and summer of 2003, Father David befriends two young, troubled students, Mark and Lisa. Their natural energy and response to the world bring out his own feelings of protectiveness, as well as longings for parts of himself — and his past — that he has come to lose. This relationship and the way it develops leads to the book's climax, as Father David finds himself facing accusations of abuse. Told from the point of view of Father David, we feel, beneath his need for order and emotional distance, the passionate undercurrents that have brought him to where he is. In this riveting novel, where every word counts, Andrew O'Hagan's brilliant writing leads us into a story of art and politics, love and faith. Be Near Me possesses a depth of feeling and a literary artistry that render it O'Hagan's masterpiece. Review:"This burnished gem of a novel has drama, emotional resonance and intellectual power enough to recall one's favorite 19th century writers. At its center is David Anderton, a Scottish-born, Oxford-educated Catholic priest who, after years in England, assumes a parish in working-class Scotland to be closer to his mother, a writer and free spirit. Now in his 50s, David recalls his own passions vividly, but he has traded his 1960s university ideals to favor the Iraq war, and his realizations of romantic love for a life of the cloth. From early on, there's a glaring gap between David's first-person recollections and the elitist, alienating affectations he assumes with others. His Dalgarnock parishioners are suspicious of his education; his only companions are his sardonic but morally stringent housekeeper, Mrs. Poole, and a pair of thuggish teenagers, Mark and Lisa, who remind him of his own youthful rebellions. As Mark and Lisa draw David into their chaotic lives, the novel builds to an inevitable clash between the spiritual and the secular, the adult and adolescent, the utopian 1960s and the neoconservative 2000s. Throughout, O'Hagan (The Missing) enchants with his effortless prose, vivid characters and David's uncanny asides, making O'Hagan's fourth novel a heartrending tour de force. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"Father David Anderton is prissy, priggish, steeped in upper-middle-class, even aristocratic culture, dying of loneliness, starving for company, heading for a fall. His life — though he doesn't recognize this until later — has become untenable and he will do anything to bring it down. The reader sees this early on, with anxiety and even anguish. Father David doesn't see it until it's entirely too... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Review:"O'Hagan keeps both accused and accusers human and even noble. The most minor characters are drawn with truth and complexity, and O'Hagan's prose is stylistically dazzling, as crafted and lovely as the best poetry." Library Journal Review:"[A] beautiful, astute novel. (Grade: A-)" Entertainment Weekly Review:"O'Hagan may have snatched the subject from today's headlines, but with remarkable skill he turns potential tabloid fare on its head....There is a graceful quality to [this novel's] circuitousness, which, despite the gravity of the subject, shows off O'Hagan's dark wit and deftness in characterization." Los Angeles Times Book Review Review:"For all the death and, mostly repressed, sex that loom over this novel, Be Near Me is generously strewn with gentle ironies and not without moments of outright comedy....O'Hagan is mostly concerned with human frailty, a problem at once moral, aesthetic, and metaphysical." New York Sun Review:"One of the remarkable things about Be Near Me...is the texture and even beauty is lends to Anderton's downfall. At a glance, the priest might seem repellent, but O'Hagan infuses him with so much complexity that his undoing...becomes undeniably tragic." Time Out New York Review:"An impeccably crafted, philosophically framed account of the decline and disgrace of an impressionable Catholic priest. UK author O'Hagan turns to questions of insight in a beautiful but ruined 21st-century landscape." Kirkus Reviews Review:"In gorgeous, melancholy prose, O'Hagan portrays a man who misapprehends both the community and himself, leading us on a thoughtful exploration of faith and of religion's role in an increasingly un-Catholic world — and, eventually, of the simple need to love and be loved....A rich and fascinating novel that promises rewards with rereading." Booklist Synopsis:Father Davids presence ignites the suspicions and smoldering hatred of a town that resents strangers, which brings him to a reckoning with the tensions of his past. In this masterfully written novel, O'Hagan explores the emotional and moral contradictions of religious life in a faithless age. Synopsis:A lways 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. About the AuthorAndrew O'Hagan is widely recognized as one of the most talented young writers in the United Kingdom today. His second novel, Personality, received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in London. Table of Contentscontents prologue January 1976 1 one Sundial 4 two The Mouth of the River 26 three Mr Perhaps 53 four Ailsa Craig 78 five Schoolboy on an Elephant 102 six The Nights 122 seven The Economy of Grace 146 eight Balliol 175 nine The People 212 ten The Echo of Something Real 235 eleven Kilmarnock 258 twelve The Single Life 285 What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
Other books you might like
Related Aisles
| ||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
Don't Miss
