Be Near Me

von Andrew O'Hagan

&quote;Always trust a stranger,&quote; said Davids mother when he returned from Rome. &quote;Its the people you know who let you down.&quote; 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 happinesshis 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 OHagan explores the emotional and moral contradictions of religious life in a faithless age.