Longlisted for the Booker Prize, Be Near Me is a brilliantly moving story of art and politics, love and change, and the way we live now. When an English priest takes over a small Scottish parish, not everyone is ready to accept him. He makes friends with two local youths, Mark and Lisa, and clashes with a world he can barely understand. The town seems to grow darker each night. Fate comes calling, and before the summer is out his quiet life is the focus of public hysteria. Meanwhile a religious war is unfolding on his doorstep . . .