Father David of Dalgarnock…

This month’s Dear Scotland column can now be found @http://dearscotland.com/2010/01/04/indelible-ink-be-near-me/ It looks at Andrew O’Hagan’s 2006 novel Be Near Me, and in particular the central chracter of Father David Anderton whose fall from grace forms the plot of the book.

The novel was one of my top ten novels of the last ten years (see Top Ten Scottish Novels of the 00’s… ) and almost demands more than one reading. If you’ve read it then please pop over to Dear Scotland and have your say. If not then I hope I can persuade you. Its not perfect by any means, but O’Hagan, through the character of David, asks interesting questions about Scotland, and makes the reader do the same.

If you want a ‘heads up’ about the novels that will be under discussion in the future here is a list for the next five months. In order they will be:

John Niven Kill Your Friends (Feb) Janice Galloway The Trick is to Keep Breathing (March) Irvine Welsh Trainspotting (April) Louise Welsh The Cutting Room (May) Gordon Legge The Shoe (Jun)

I hope there’s something on there to tempt you…