Our Fathers Add a review

Our Fathers (1999) is the debut novel by Scottish novelist Andrew O'Hagan. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize (1999). It was also nominated for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the International Dublin Literary Award.

The book focuses on James Bawn revisiting his dying grandfather Hugh Bawn in Ayrshire and a brief reunion with his alcoholic father Robert Bawn. It is James who tells the story of his family, heirs of immigrants from Ireland. Hugh, known as "Mr Housing", had been responsible for the building of tower blocks in Glasgow and across south-west Scotland to replace earlier slums, but these blocks are now in turn being demolished. All three generations of the family followed lives of pride and depression, of nationality and alcohol, of Catholic faith and the end of left-wing idealism.