With "Our Fathers," rookie novelist Andrew O'Hagan announces his entry into the foray of 21st-century writers with great promise. His first novel is as much a test as it is a book.

O'Hagan hasn't written the greatest first novel ever written, in "Our Fathers." He has, however, written a sublimely adequate novel that should leave readers wondering what the author has in store. For a first novel, "Our Fathers," is, perhaps, technically unsurpassed. It's structure, language, and plot are all expertly presented and well recieved. O'Hagan's fault is in his commitment to his characters, all of whom seem superficially created. His is a great story, well told, with characters in whom we never really trust or believe.

Interestingly, the same could be said of early James Joyce, or even Ernest Hemingway. I would place O'Hagan's potential somewhere between the two of those giants; not quite as intelectually distancing as Joyce, not quite as forceful as Hemingway.

O'Hagan is, no doubt, a gifted writer. This book is fun to read, if only to imagine what it might precede in this genuinely talented writer's career.

Here's hoping he continues...

i spent tweleve hours reading this book...though in the beginning, i wouldn't really say this was a page turner...some parts of this book really disturbed me: jamie's encounter with the priest; his father,robert, the vicious savage that he is, and just the overall tone of the book, which is extremely bleak( i can handle grim, but this was extremely grim for my tastes)... i once lived with a scottish woman, and she never liked to talked about her family, or about her life back in scotland, but when she spoke of it, it was always with reverence; and unlike the character hugh, she hated the irish... what liked most about book, was although, o'hagan showed his family's dysfunctions, he also showed the love that existed between them,that gives the book its soul...

The beauty of the language and the young man's feelings for his father and his grandfather, and the astonishing resolution tucked in a few lines like one beautiful pebble on a great shoreline. He writes of the heart. I could not put it down and missed it awfully when it was over.

This is the usual fare that critics at the New York Times discuss at trendy Manhattan restaurants, the kind of self pitying whining that distinguishes their "leisure" section for privileged urbanites, opposite the "news" where blood thirsty articles condoning American war crimes prevail.

This is an astonishing book on a number of levels. At its most basic, it provides a fascinating account of how easily it becomes possible for people to 'disappear'. If you've ever sat staring at a kid's face on the back of a milk carton, and wondered 'What happened?', The Missing will go a considerable way to providing answers. But that's not all: as a piece of autobiography -- indeed, as a piece about memory -- The Missing is stunning: precise, lucid, beautiful despite itself. As a piece of reportage, it is, simply, astonishing. My hat goes off to Mr O'Hagan.