Be Near Me
Andrew O'HaganJames Robertson transforms the supernatural experience of a faithless minister into a mesmerising exploration of the nature of belief.
For Gideon Mack, faithless minister, an unfaithful husband and troubled soul, the existence of God, let alone the Devil, is no more credible than that of ghosts or fairies. Until the day he falls into a gorge and is rescued by someone who might just be Satan himself. Mack’s testament - presented as a found memoir - is a compelling blend of memory, legend, history and, quite possibly, madness.
"One of the few truly essential works of fiction to emerge from this country during the past 20 years or more." - John Burnside, Daily Telegraph
James Kelman famously brought Scottish vernacular to the Booker Prize in 1994. James Robertson, however, has gone further: he publishes Scots-language books for children. Robertson, books and Scotland are inextricably entwined. As well as his own fiction - which reflects the areas of Scotland he knows best - he has a doctorate on the fiction of Walter Scott, was assistant manager of Waterstones in Glasgow, runs an independent publishing company as well as Itchy Coo, his Scots-language imprint, and has translated Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal into Scots (Fae the Flouers o Evil). In 2004, he became the first writer-in-residence at the Scottish Parliament building, later turning the experience into a sequence of sonnets.