{"product_id":"9780156033961","title":"Be Near Me","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"O'Hagan tackles a highly charged subject with exceptional intelligence and subtlety.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Always trust a stranger,\" said David’s mother when he returned from Rome. \"It’s the people you know who let you down.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHalf 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"So subtle and richly hued that it calls the larger society to account. How rare to find a contemporary work . . . rise to treat a Catholic priest with something more interesting than pity or contempt or condescension . . . \u003ci\u003eBe Near Me\u003c\/i\u003e is the one of the best grown-up stories this year. It is harrowing and beautiful and worth every word.\" –\u003ci\u003eThe Plain Dealer\u003c\/i\u003e (Cleveland)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBe Near Me\u003c\/i\u003e is about a man distanced from everyone, most especially himself . . . Andrew O'Hagan asks us implicitly to look at our own lives, ask ourselves how clueless we may be, as we try, with courage or cowardice or both, to get from this particular day on to the next.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eANDREW O'HAGAN\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Glasgow in 1968. \u003ci\u003eBe Near Me \u003c\/i\u003eis his third novel. His second novel, \u003ci\u003ePersonality, \u003c\/i\u003ereceived the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in London and is a regular contributor to the \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDiscussion guide available at www.HarcourtBooks.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVisit www.HarcourtBooks.com\/BeNearMe.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Houghton Mifflin Harcourt","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47969676886256,"sku":"9780156033961","price":20.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780156033961_p0.jpg?v=1763779328","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780156033961","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}