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Also by Andrew O'Hagan:

Be Near Me, June 2007
Hardcover

BE NEAR ME
By: Andrew O'Hagan

Harcourt
June 2007
On Sale: June 4, 2007
320 pages
ISBN: 0151013039
EAN: 9780151013036
Hardcover
Add to Wish List

Fiction

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.

Media Buzz

Fresh Air - NPR - June 18, 2007