Andrew O'Hagan

An utterly unique take on the most extraordinary period of the twentieth century, from one of Britain's most exciting literary writers. In November 1960, Frank Sinatra gave Marilyn Monroe a dog. His name was Maf. He had an instinct for the twentieth century. For politics. For psychoanalysis. For literature. For interior decoration. This is his story. Maf the dog was with Marilyn for the last two years of her life. Not only a picaresque hero himself, he was also a scholar of the adventuring rogue in literature and art, witnessing the rise of America's new liberalism, civil rights, the space race, the New York critics, and was Marilyn Monroe's constant companion. Maf was very much a real historical figure, with his license and photographs sold at auction along with Marilyn's other person affects. Through his eyes we get an insight into the life of Monroe herself, and a fascinating new angle on the most talked-about decade of recent times.

Älykäs, kepeä ja hauska, melankolinen ja merkillisen uskottava romaani. Vuonna 1960 Frank Sinatra antoi ystävälleen Marilyn Monroelle koiran, jonka Marilyn nimesi Mafia Honeyksi. Maf vietti Marilynin kanssa tämänkaksi viimeistä vuotta, joiden aikana se kulki Marilynin mukana kaikkialle ja jakoi tämän kanssa kaiken. Se rakasti maksaa, kenkiä ja taiteen mysteerejä. Mutta eniten se rakasti omistajaansa. Lämpimän humoristinen kirjallinen seikkailu sijoittuu 1960-luvulle, Marilynin elämän viimeisiin vaiheisiin. Näemme Marilynin toipumassa erostaan Arthur Milleristä, suihkuseurapiireissä Frank Sinatran ja Jack Kennedyn seurassa ja lopulta viimeisen elokuvansa lavasteissa. Näemme hänet myös yksin ja haavoittuvaisena, ainoastaan uskollinen koira seuranaan. Maf on todistaja, kertoja ja filosofinen taustaääni romaanissa, jossa korkea- ja populaarikulttuuri kietoutuvat saumattomasti toisiinsa. Moniäänisessä ja villin luovassa teoksessa näyttämölle nousevat vuoroin runoja lausuvat kissat, puhuvat leppäkertut ja taide- ja viihdealan huiput poliittisine mielipiteineen. Maf-koiran veijarimainen hahmo seisoo tukevasti neljällä tassulla nykyaikaisen kirjallisuuden elinvoimaisimpien hahmojen rinnalla. ANDREW O'HAGAN syntyi Glasgowissa vuonna 1968. Maf-koira ja hänen ystävänsä Marilyn Monroe on O'Haganin neljäs romaani. Aikaisemmillateoksillaan hän on voittanut James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction -palkinnon ja amerikkalaisen E. M. Forster -palkinnon. Hän on myös ollutkahdesti ehdolla Booker-palkinnon voittajaksi. O'Hagan asuu nykyään Lontoossa. Tammi on aiemmin julkaissut O'Haganin romaanin Lähempänätaivasta (2002).

A stunning collection of reportage from an acclaimed journalist and novelist hailed by the New York Times as 'the best essayist of his generation'. As he grew up, Andrew O'Hagan witnessed the decline of Britain and the rise of America, the end of British industry and the rise of Blair and the tabloids. This collection of essays tells the story of that period in our cultural and political life. Through the reported essays that first made O'Hagan's name, it is a book filled both with personal story and the power of documentary witness. Opening with a major personal piece examining the journey of Britain and America since the closing of the Thatcher years, it concludes with a piece of reportage telling the story of a British and an American soldier who died in Iraq on the same day in 2006. A fascinating, important and timely collection from a hugely important essayist.

"Always trust a stranger," said David's mother when he returned from Rome. "It's the people you know who let you down." 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 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. In this masterfully written novel, Andrew O'Hagan explores the emotional and moral contradictions of religious life in a faithless age.

From the author of Mayflies 'There is no page on which there is not something surprising or quotable or pleasurable of thought-provoking.' Hilary Mantel'One of the few truly essential works of fiction to emerge from this country during the past 20 years or more.' John Burnside, Daily TelegraphLonglisted 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 . . .

Growing up on the Scottish Isle of Bute, Maria Tambini is a young girl with dreams of escape from her Italian immigrant family. When her amazing singing voice wins her a talent show at the tender age of thirteen, she is whisked off to London and instant stardom. But even as Maria is celebrating her greatest success, she is waging a hidden battle against her own body, and becoming in the process a living exhibit in the modern drama of celebrity. Can she be saved by love? Or will she be consumed by an obsessive celebrity culture, family lies, and by her number-one fan? This stunning novel is a rich portrait of an immigrant community and a tragic tale of the hidden costs of celebrity.

The theme of this Scottish Catholic novel is the collision of the old Scotland of municipal socialism and the new. That collision is dramatized in the story of the narrator's grandfather, an ambitious but misguided social improver.

One of the most original, moving and beautifully written non-fiction works of recent years, The Missing marked the acclaimed debut of one of Britain's most astute and important writers. In a brilliant merging of reportage, social history and memoir, Andrew O'Hagan clears a devastating path from the bygone Glasgow of the 1970s to the grim secrets of Gloucester in the mid 1990s.'A triumph in words.' Independent on Sunday'The Missing, part autobiography, part old-fashioned pavement-pounding, marks the most auspicious debut by a British writer for some time.' Gordon Burn, Independent'A timely corrective to the idea that nothing profound can be said about now.' Will Self, Observer Books of the Year'His vision of modern Britain has the quality of a poetic myth, with himself as Bunyan's questing Christian and the missing as Dantesque souls in limbo.' Blake Morrison, Guardian

Andrew O'Hagan's second novel, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, is a powerful tale about society, celebrity and self-destruction. Maria Tambini is a thirteen-year-old girl with a great singing voice. Growing up on a small Scottish island, she is ready for the big time and keen to escape her ordinary life. When she wins a national TV talent show, she becomes an instant star, yet all the time 'the girl with the giant voice' is losing herself in fame and in a private battle with her own body. Can Maria be saved by love or is she destined to be consumed by celebrity, by family secrets, and by her number-one fan?'Enormously impressive, frequently curious and consistently ambitious.' Sunday Times'What he manages brilliantly is allowing us only restricted access to Maria's mind, so that the reader is put in something like the same relation to her as the sharkish agents and managers who suck her dry.' Guardian'Such command, such grace, and such compassion.' New York Review of Books

What would happen if you took some of Britain's best writing talent, put them on a plane and flew them to one of the most extraordinary and inaccessible places on the planet?

Hugh Bawn was a modern hero, a dreamer, a man of the people who revolutionized Scotland's residential development after World War II. Now, as he lies dying in one of his own buildings, his grandson Jamie comes home to watch over him. It is Jamie who tells the story of his family, of three generations of pride and delusion, of nationality and strong drink, of Catholic faith and the end of political idealism. It is a tale of darkness amidst the search for Utopia. A poignant and very powerful reclamation of the past, Our Fathers is also a clearsighted and beautifully crafted look at public and personal history.