Mayflies: A Novel

by Andrew O'Hagan

Overview

An unforgettable coming-of-age novel that becomes a profound mediation on life, death, and lifelong friendship.

Everyone has a Tully Dawson: the friend who defines your life.

In the summer of 1986, in a small Scottish town, James and Tully ignite a brilliant friendship based on music, films and the rebel spirit. With school over and the locked world of their fathers before them, they rush towards the climax of their youth: a magical weekend in Manchester, the epicentre of everything that inspires them in working-class Britain. There, against the greatest soundtrack ever recorded, a vow is made: to go at life differently.

Thirty years on, half a life away, the phone rings. Tully has news—news that forces the life-long friends to confront their own mortality head-on. What follows is an incredibly moving examination of the responsibilities and obligations we have to those we love. Mayflies is at once a finely-tuned drama about the delicacy and impermanence of human connection and an urgent inquiry into some of the most important questions of all: Who are we? What do we owe to our friends? And what does it mean to love another person amidst tragedy?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780771068119
Publisher:	McClelland & Stewart
Publication date:	05/17/2022
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

ANDREW O'HAGAN was born in Glasgow. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize, was voted one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, and he won the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Editor-at-Large of the London Review of Books and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Editorial Reviews

"A beautiful ode to lost youth and male friendship written by one of our sharpest observers of modern masculinity." —Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain

"Mayflies is one of those novels to press into the hands of friends. Beautifully written—wise, funny, poetic, alert to time, place and the ordinary human . . . I adored this book." —Carol Ann Duffy

"Tender, heartfelt" —The New York Times, New & Noteworthy

"Mayflies is entirely unexpected; a joyful, warm and heart-filling tribute to the million-petalled flower of male friendship. This book will last beyond these feverish times: it's not just a reminder that culture makes the worst things bearable, but a beautiful example of it in action." —The Times

"A rare thing: a life-enhancing novel about death. It will stay with you and you will want to read it again." —Scotsman

"Life-loving and elegiac." ―Observer

"A delightful nostalgia trip of enduring teenage friendship . . . an affecting and evocative picture of an era and a relationship." ―Daily Telegraph

"O'Hagan has written a tight, delicate and soulful novel . . . about the power of enduring friendship." ―Sunday Times

"An assured and self-contained piece of theatre, in which love of many kinds is tested, Mayflies is rich in allusions, gracefully written, yet vigorous. . . . This is a book of high artistic ambition, and a reminder, were it needed, of the seriousness that fiction can address . . . O'Hagan's achievement is not to flinch from reality, nor to wallow in misery, but to fill the pages with roaring life, right up to the last kick of the ball." ―The Herald

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone and read Andrew O'Hagan's new novel. Mayflies is a lifetime book." ―The Australian

From the Publisher

03/22/2021

O’Hagan’s powerful if disjointed latest (after The Illuminations) explores a friendship between two men over three decades. Narrator Jimmy Collins and Tully Dawson, Glaswegian teenagers on the verge of adulthood in 1986, reconnect 31 years later after one of them is diagnosed with terminal cancer. The first half sets up Jimmy and Tully’s backstory, mainly through Jimmy’s time spent at Tully’s house after his parents abandoned him. As they grow, Jimmy looks forward to college and Tully works as a lathe turner at a factory. The section devoted to 1986 crackles with whip-smart dialogue and references to music and movies, and is buoyed by youthful male energy, notably when Jimmy, Tully, and their rowdy group of mates head to Manchester for an electronic punk festival. The second part, set in 2017, begins with one of the two getting a call from the other, who says he’s “totally fucked” with cancer spreading to his lymph nodes, and the men’s reunion challenges the limits of their friendship. Here, the tone and energy become somber and muted, starkly contrasting the opening section and offering an unfortunately abrupt transition. Though credibly forceful, this reads like two well-done short novels written under very different influences. Agent: Peter Straus, Rogers, Coleridge & White. (May)

Publishers Weekly