Mayflies

by Andrew O'Hagan

From the widely renowned author Andrew O'Hagan, a heartbreaking novel of an extraordinary 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.

Mayflies is a memorial to youth's euphorias and to everyday tragedy. A tender goodbye to an old union, it discovers the joy and the costs of love.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming Of Age, Scotland, Book Club

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2020

About the author

Andrew O'Hagan, FRSL (born 1968) is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author.

He is the author of the novels Our Fathers, Personality, and Be Near Me, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, and The Guardian (U.K.). In 2003, O’Hagan was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. He lives in London, England.

Reviews

[Andy Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book read like poetry, from the first page to the last. No words will allow me to describe its beauty and poignancy. And so, I shall leave it to you to read it yourself, and tell me that you loved it, too.

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the beginning of this novel when we first meet James and Tully in their youth, as their friendship develops and we get to know their family circumstances. I loved their friendship and how Tully and his Mom looked out for James. I was so connected, but then I lost interest when they make a weekend trip from their town near Glasgow to Manchester for a music festival, with some other boys who are in Tully’s band. I was so disinterested that I did something I don’t often do, I skimmed for a while. I just could not tolerate the boys, and the bands and the booze and the banter. I just didn’t enjoy the craziness. Maybe it’s my age. Usually if I’m skimming, I throw in the towel, but there was something about the beginning of the novel that made me continue, something about these characters that made think there was going to be something worthwhile here. I’m so glad I did because I thought the second half of the book was very much worth reading.

This is a story that explores relationships, friendship and love, life and death issues, dealing with a terminal illness. Maybe the dichotomy between their youth and what was happening when they are in their fifties emphasizes more the realities the characters faced as adults. I still did not enjoy that earlier part of the book, though, but I understood a little more after the second half, how it cemented their friendship. The second half of the book was moving, thought provoking and made me do a little soul searching myself thinking about the fragility of life. I was captivated wondering if James would be able to do a very difficult thing that Tully asks of him. Reflections on life and death, what would you be willing to do for your best friend? The Great Gatsby is Tully’s favorite book. How could I not connect with him for that and for the person so generous with himself that he was even as a young man ? How could I not connect with James who deeply recognizes how Tully has touched his life, for standing by him. An absolutely beautiful friendship.

I read this with Diane and Esil as one of our monthly reads and I’m glad we decided to stick with this in spite of our initial reservations.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Penguin Random House Canada through NetGalley.

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contrasts: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe and Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan.
Mayfly is a flying ephemeral insect living just for a day…
Youth… Youth with all its flamboyance and angst…

…being young is a kind of warfare in which the great enemy is experience.

The last century… The middle of the eighties… The rebellious and rambunctious times of the post-punk rock… “Tully was twenty years old and a lathe turner.” And he was in the band…

He had innate charisma, a brilliant record collection, complete fearlessness in political argument, and he knew how to love you more than anybody else. …and Tully was ready for flight. He wasn’t so much the butterfly as the air on which it travels.

The narrator was eighteen then… Forsaken by his parents… And Tully was his exemplary friend…

That was just the latest change: the divorce. I’d always been bookish. I was one of those kids who bumped into lamp posts on the way back from the library.

And they decided to go to the Festival of the Tenth Summer in Manchester celebrating ten years of punk rock… Musical legends of the time… Those were the days!
Thirty years flashed by… Much water has flown under the bridge… Their friendship lasts…

There are moments like this, when you know nothing. I sat at the table, pouring whisky and seeing clear pictures that I’d thought had faded. My eye fell on a little Mao clock standing on the dresser. It had been a gift from Tully. He brought it back from one of his trips to Cuba.

Whatever happens and wherever we are the days of our youth are always with us.

[Paromjit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew O'Hagan writes a brilliantly witty and unsentimental novel, a compassionate, sensitively relayed story of a group of friends set in two time period, examining the nature of class, friendship, life, love, loss and the impact, persistence and strength of their earlier bonds. Narrated by the quieter, but bright Jimmy, it is the summer of 1986 in Glasgow, the close group revolves around their working class, larger than life, charismatic, natural leader, 20 year old Tully Dawson, who has a remarkable capacity to love. They are on the cusp of heading out into very different futures after the end of school, music obsessives, the lyrics, their record collections, films, political discussions,the culture of that period of the 1980s, Thatcher's Britain, a time that resonated so strongly with me.

They make the decision to go to Manchester, to a Factory Records festival to mark the Sex Pistols, with acts that epitomised the 1980s. They experience a wild and unforgettable time, fizzing with energy, unrivalled joy, fervour, a strong spirit of rebellion, epitomising all that mattered to them. It is now 2017, and Jimmy is now a magazine writer, when he gets the shocking news that Tully is dying, he has cancer and he needs Jimmy. Amidst a wedding, the group are now older, different, with responsibilities, sharply contrasting with their younger selves when they had felt so invincible, a time they reflect on. Despite all the years that have passed, the strong relationships formed leave their mark, surviving, in a emotionally heartbreaking narrative of our mortality, the power of memories, male friendship, love and loss. O'Hagan develops his characters with great skill, they felt authentic, so real and so representative of that time. A memorable read that revived my memories of the time with ease. Many thanks to Faber and Faber for an ARC.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Outlier here. I had a bit of a tough time with this Scottish novel. There were some very good things about this book, but the not so good things brought my rating down significantly.

First the good. This is a storyline I hadn’t read before, so points for uniqueness. I connected (after a while) with the narrator Jimmy (aka “Noodles”) and to a lesser extent Tully. I also admired Iona. The characterization is very good. More importantly, I loved the brilliant manner in which Mr. O’Hagan handles the subject of assisted suicide. He explores the enormous complexities of disparate types of love and how each kind of love leads to a different approach to this very controversial issue. This part of the storyline encompasses the entire second half of the book and is what saved the book for me.

On the downside, the majority of the first half of the novel lost me. Jimmy and Tully head off to Manchester, England, for a blowout music festival with several of their friends. At that point, we are bombarded with the antics of “young men being young men” and inundated with the names of European bands that I never heard of. I’m a big music fan but didn’t know any of these acts and thus there was nothing for me to relate to. I did not enjoy this arc of the tale at all. If I were not reading to review, I would have undoubtedly put the book down. I am glad I persevered, however, as the second act of the book was just excellent.

So a tale of two parts for me, leading to a middle of the road rating of 3 stars.

Thank you, Net Galley, Faber & Faber, and Andrew O’Hagan for granting me an ARC of Mayflies. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is divided into two parts, separated by roughly thirty years. The book starts out strong and we get to know James and Fully, but then descends into a self indulgent weekend in Manchester. Music,alcohol, drugs are prevalent and I didn't care for this section at all. In fact, if this wasn't a read with Angela and Esil, I might have put the book down. DON'T! The second section is remarkable and why this weekend in Manchester was so important is soon revealed.

The second part takes a tragic turn and begs the question of just how much can we ask our friends? Make our own decisions even if someone else close to us doesn't agree and is hurt by the request? When do we say enough is enough? The book turns into a book of a wonderful friendship, a closeness that supercedes all requests no matter how difficult. It is so different from the first part, even the way it is written but I'm so glad I didn't quit reading. It encompasses the full tragedy of lives fully lived.

ARC from Netgalley.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 2 out of 5]

“He says it was all music and comedy”
“It was. Plus a few films”
“Now it’s all silence and death”

Andrew O’Hagan has written five previous novels: his first was Booker shortlisted, his second (based around Lena Zavaroni) one Britain’s oldest literary prize (the James Tait Black Memorial), his third and fifth were Booker shortlisted (and his fourth had as its narrator the dog that Frank Sinatra gifted Marilyn Monroe). He has also ghosted an autobiography of Julian Assange. The only of his writing I have read I think is a length essay on the Grenfell Tower disaster which took up a whole issue of the LRB (where he is editor-in-chief) – an article which has proved to be controversial.

This, his sixth novel, is set over two time periods. The first is the Summer of 1986: our 18-year-old first-person narrator Jimmy (heading for a place at Strathclyde University after the intervention of an inspirational teacher) lives in Irvine New Town in Glasgow, apart from his father and mother who have walked out in turn to find themselves leading him to announce he has divorced them. Instead he spends his time with his 20-year-old friend Tully Dawson and his family. Tully is the son of a miner – “Woodbine” – still embittered by the defeat of the Miners’ Strike – a resentment he takes out on his family; and his himself a lathe turner and aspiring pop star.

The two a small group of similarly aged friends head to Manchester for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festiva... - a Festival organised by Factory Records to commemorate the Sex Pistols first gig in Manchester and which (and I can only quote Wikipedia here in corroboration of the shocking details in the book) felt that a line up of Morrisey, New Order and OMD was an appropriate way to pay tribute to punk.

The group are interested in films, music and in left-wing politics and their dialogue (particularly that of Jimmy and Tully) is laced through with film quotations, music lyrics and references, “name your top 3” challenges provocative banter and political discussion (albeit with an underlying heavier and more sentimental aspect to Tully’s reflections (“We were soft as Tunnock Teacakes, sentimental as sherbet”) on his future and the way in which he feels trapped by what he sees as the inevitability of falling into his father’s life); and the limited action consist of music-watching, drinking, light drug taking, and half-hearted attempts to chat up girls.

The second half of the book takes place in 2017 – Tully contacts Jimmy (now a magazine writer in London) to tell him he has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and wants Jimmy as “campaign-manager” for his last days, including helping him avoid the full indignity of a death to cancer. A set piece of the second part if Tully’s marriage (at Jimmy’s suggestion) to his partner, at which the other protagonists of the first section appear. The writing and dialogue in this section is more reflective and the action more emotional.

My biggest issue with the book I think was due to its rather conventional linear structure.

The first section I found rather repetitive and aimless at times – perhaps (if I am being honest) exacerbated by my views on the music being discussed. In the 2017 section Tibbs calls the Thatcherite Eighties “The Decade That Decency Forgot” – I have always called it “The Decade that Music Forgot, the lost period between Punk and Grunge). And without knowing the cinema references one feels in the situation of this quote “I think he imagined everyone below him, all the ordinary people of the city would know the films he was quoting from, they they’d know they by heart, having somehow lived in them all their days”.

The second section while much more affecting felt a little inevitable in its trajectory.

Having read recently novels like Emily St John Mandel’s “Station Eleven” and “The Glass Hotel” which deal brilliantly with a non-linear structure, I felt that this may have been a much stronger novel if the two sections had been interleaved (with even the interleaving being non-linear within each section).

I also do not think this would have been artificial – frequently in the second section characters refer to events in the first, and matching their memories against their contemporary impressions, and also meeting characters in the past sometimes after (but sometimes before) we meet them in the present would I think have added a much stronger dimension to the book and sustained my flagging interest in each half.

My thanks to Faber and Faber Limited for an ARC via NetGalley.
[email protected]

“It’s every day of your life. The songs. The quotes. Down at the caravan recently, I thought to myself, It’s been a life of quotations. That’s why we liked some of those bands so much in the Eighties: they sampled as much as we did”

[Peter Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

"They say you know nothing at eighteen. But there are things you know at eighteen that you will never know again."

This sad, nostalgic tale has an interesting structure. The first half is set in 1986, where a gang of rowdy Scottish teenagers head to Manchester for an unforgettable gig. The second half happens several years later, when one of the group receives some tragic news.

Out of all of them, our narrator James and the charismatic Tully are the closest. James, a thoughtful, bookish sort, comes from a broken home, but Tully takes him in and the family treat him as one of their own. The boys are on the cusp of adulthood when we first encounter them, beginning to think about their future. Tully is the more cynical of the two but he encourages his intelligent pal to dream big. All that is set to one side for the matter of the big trip to Manchester. The pair travel south with their mates - drinking, quoting their favourite films and chasing girls. Though they might not realise it at the time, this is the best weekend of their lives.

The mood changes dramatically in the second half. James and Tully are still close, but a devastating blow changes their whole dynamic. They reminisce about the old days, sad that they are long gone, but thankful for all the happy memories. With a heavy heart, James agrees to carry out one last favour for his old pal.

Mayflies is a paean to carefree adolescence and at the same time, a cautionary tale of the way time creeps up on all of us. Most of all though, it's an ode to true friendship: the kind that endures, whatever bliss or heartache life brings. It might be a touch too sentimental for some, but I found it a moving, heartwarming read.

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

My problem with this novel was that I failed to relate to the main characters in the first half with the result that their sad story in the second half equally failed to engage me. Jimmy and Tully are young working-class “lads” when we first meet them and the first half of the book follows them and their mates on a wild weekend at a music festival in Manchester with the inevitable alcohol and generally tedious to read about drunken exploits in the big city. We then switch to the present when Jimmy gets a phone call from Tully telling of his approaching death and we accompany the two friends on their last journey together. The book is obviously heartfelt as it is based on O’Hagan’s own experiences with a similar phone call from a friend with a terminal illness. Certainly the second half of the book is more relatable than the first but I wasn’t fully drawn in, not least because the constant male banter irritated me. There are some poignant moments, admittedly, but overall this wasn’t one for me.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book. I finished this with tears in my eyes and a twist in my stomach.

A book of two distinct halves, the first of which follows a group of young friends in 1986 Glasgow as they plan for a trip to Manchester G-Mex for a music festival - The Smiths, New Order et al. These lads, all in their late teens and early 20s, are bonded by music, books, films and politics. They are from deeply working-class backgrounds and share a hatred of Thatcher, racism and capitalism. Their lives seem at once defined, enhanced and restricted by their class - James, our narrator, believes the idea of university ludicrous, while his best friend Tully, despite dreams of a music career, sees a life at the lathe looming. At one point James is laughed out of an interview at a fencing firm when the boss spots a battered copy of Sartre in his pocket.

This first part of the novel I found incredibly convincing and personally very resonant. It demonstrates the difficulties of being working class and bookish; of being working class and wanting more, yet not willing to accept the price of becoming middle-class; the difficulties of defending workers' rights while sometimes being repulsed by the views and actions of those very people you're standing up for.

The second half opens thirty years later, with James taking a call from Tully, who has news to share. I don't want to give too much away about the plot but I'll say the second half is deeply affecting and wholly convincing.

I fell completely in love with these characters and their stories. Their friendship is intoxicating and felt incredibly real. The changes - for better or worse - these bonds go through over time also hit home hard - O'Hagan just gets male friendship.

In short, it is a beautiful novel, steeped in nostalgia but not shying away from the difficulties of lifelong friendship. One of the best books I have read this year.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

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“What we had that day was our story. We didn't have the other bit, the future, and we had no way of knowing what that would be like. Perhaps it would change our memory of al of this, or perhaps it would draw from it, nobody knew. But I'm sure I felt the story of that hall and how we reached it would never vanish.”

Mayflies is novel about the friendship between two Glaswegian men. The first half of the novel is set in the summer of 1986 when our narrator, James, alongside four of his friends go to Manchester to watch some of their favourite bands. Andrew O'Hagan really brings this era to life, through their slang and the references they use. During the course of this freewheeling weekend they have the time of their lives, going to pubs and clubs, getting up to shenanigans, hanging out withs strangers, all the while animatedly discussing music and politics (Thatcher, the miners' strike). James, who is the more bookish and reserved of the lot, is particularly close to Tully, who is the undeniable glue that binds their group together and a wonderful friend. While this first half of the novel is all about what if feels to be young, reckless, free, and full of life, O'Hagan's characters, regardless of their age, are capable serious reflections, such as wondering what sort future awaits them and their country.
This section is so steeped in 1980s culture that I sometimes had a hard time keeping up with their banter (I am not from the UK and I'm a 90s child so I'm sure that readers who are more familiar with this era won't have such a hard time).

“The past was not only a foreign country, it was a whole other geology.”

The second half brings us forward to 2017 when both James and Tully are in their early 50s. Here the narrative feels far more restrained, reflecting James' age. He has different preoccupations now, a career, a partner. Yet, he is recognisably still James. Tully too is both changed and unchanged. In spite of the distance between them (James lives in London now) the two have remained close friends. This latter section moves at a far slower pace, which should have been jarring but it wasn't. If anything it felt very natural. Here we have more measured meditations about life and death, questions about what we owe to the ones we love, and reconciliations with the past.
O'Hagan succeeds in uniting two very different moments/stages of a man's life. An exhilarating snapshot of being young in the 80s is followed by a slower-paced and more thoughtful narrative centred around people who haven't been young for quite some time. I have read very few—if any—novels that focus on male friendship. So often we see portrayals that show how intimate and deep female friendships are, which is wonderful but it's refreshing to read a novel that is very much an ode to the friendship between two men. O'Hagan's portrayal of the relationship between Tully and James was incredibly moving and nuanced.

“Loyalty came easily to Tully. Love was the politics that kept him going.”

Although I may have missed quite a few cultural references and I definitely didn't get a lot of the Glaswegian/80s, thanks to the musical education I received from my parents I mostly managed to keep up with this novel's music front. I really appreciated James' literary references, which later in life make their way into his conversations with Tully. I also liked the way James would observe the character traits of those around—both as a young man and later in life—as well as his pondering about childhood, adulthood, generational differences, life in general. His thoughtful narration was truly compelling.
Mayflies is an affecting and realistic novel that presents its readers with a vibrant examination of friendship and identity, one that I would thoroughly recommend to others.

[Trudie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

What we had that day was our story. We didn't have the other bit, the future, and we had no way of knowing what that would be like. Perhaps it would change our memory of all this, or perhaps it would draw from it, nobody knew.

The pages of this novel are soaked in bittersweet nostalgia, a very particular nostalgia for the late teens and early twenties, the golden period of carefree youth.

Mayflies opens in the summer of '86, the lads are gathered for one perfect weekend in Manchester. They have tickets to The Festival of the Tenth Summer, culminating at G-Mex, it's a weekend that is destined to live on in the sounds of The Smiths, New Order, The Fall. Consequently, I defy you to get through this book without listening to a compilation of this "Manchester sound". Those familiar with such films as 24-hr Party People or Control will already find themselves in a relatable musicscape.

The first half of the novel is a rapid-fire introduction to the "gang" and in particular the friendship of James and Tully. It's a clamorous, unruly narrative this one, studded with in-jokes, snatched bits of song lyrics, film quotes and late 80s politics- the reader inevitably feels like an outsider. Only as the weekend draws to a close does the pace ease and we start to appreciate how much this weekend will shape the trajectory of the novel and friendship both.

The shift to 2017 and the inevitabilities of middle age, immediately made me want to dive back into the halcyon days of 1986. There is a real juxtaposition between the two halves of this story, it gives you that frisson you feel when you meet a friend from youth now morphed into someone barely recognisable. It's a shock, but you soon settle into a different groove.

There is such a wistfulness here, that recalls to mind Waughs Brideshead Revisited. In that novel Sebastian Flyte is described as being "in love with his own childhood,” and in the same way, I think James and Tully are in love with their own adolescence. Waugh's brand of nostalgia and longing certainly permeates this novel. O'Hagen knows just the touchstones to draw upon to set this tone ;

There’s this photograph of Violet Carson, who played Sharples. She’s dead now. In the photograph, she’s standing on a balcony over Salford, it tells you everything you need to know about everything.

I was looking at Barrie. The Nicholson portrait. It’s haunting, actually. I’ve never seen a person more alone. He’s only forty-four. It was painted a dozen years before the tragedies began.

I spent a tearful moment looking up these images after finishing the book and I think they tell you all you need to know about Mayflies

I don't deny this was an emotional reading experience for me. It could be the writing but also the fact that my normally stone-cold heart is easily swayed by the strains of Ian Curtis's Atmosphere playing on repeat while reading this. I can imagine that not all readers will feel as strongly about the music of this novel.

Mayflies is a beautiful novel of male friendship, music, and the freedom to live and die the way you wish. Be prepared to shed some tears, while dancing impetuously around listening to the songs of your twenties.

The second book by a Scottish author that has blown me away this year.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel about male friendship, divided into two parts. The early part narrates the story of a group of Scottish friends who make a trip to Manchester to see the Smiths and New Order. In the second part we see the boys as middle aged men, the most enigmatic of whom has terminal cancer.

Inadvertently this book provides lots of insights into why men can be so annoying! To begin with there's that facile sense of superiority they get from identifying themselves with the trendiest music of the time. As if anyone who appreciates the Smiths is a more exalted being than someone who, for example, prefers Bach. Then there's the nostalgia for youth and its concomitant reluctance to grow up. I felt sorry for the women in this novel though they're given little space in the narrative, like helpless observers. Men who recite lines from movies to each other, as happens a lot here, are, to my mind, to be avoided at all costs. He's good at delivering up the banter of teenagers. A problem here though is the banter of teenagers tends to be inane and there's a lot of it in this novel. And there's not much irony in the author's celebration of youthful ebullience. All this said it's very well written novel and one I enjoyed reading.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully tender book about masculine friendship, love, life and death. O'Hagan keeps the balance beautifully between humour and a refusal to look away from the realities of mortality.

James and Tully are fleshed out brilliantly as are, in the second half, their partners - and this stays on the right side of being frank without descending into either morbidity or the cloyingly saccharine. And it's funny, wonderfully funny - just as the politicised commentary on Thatcher's Britain feels spot on.

With an explicit nod to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning this brings the working class lads-lit novel into the present.

So much to love about this book - just keep a tissue handy, I'd say.

Many thanks to Faber & Faber for an ARC via NetGalley

[Sebastian · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.7

This book has been on my radar for so long. And this cover from Faber & Faber is just exquisite. No wonder I had high expectations for it.

But I got so so so disappointed. There are all the ingredients in this book that should have made it a great piece of fiction: indie bands from the 80's like the Smiths and Buzzcocks, two timelines, post punk concerts and the vibe of the Manchester scene, friendship and more meaningful, existential questions. Nonetheless, it was so difficult for me to connect with the characters. The writing is kind of cold, the characters heavily underdeveloped and as a result I did not really devour this novel, I was able to just superficially scan it. The ending is extremely sad but because of the lack of any transportation into the world of the novel it still left me pretty much indifferent for things for which I am very far from any indifference.

[Nigeyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mayflies (2020) by Andrew O'Hagan is a wonderful, heartfelt book about youth, friendship, death, and what it is to be human.

For anyone who lived through the 1980s, and enjoyed the indie music of the era, this is nigh on essential. The first part of the book embraces this era via a weekend trip to Manchester in 1986 for a group of Scottish friends. The passion and intensity of teenage life is stunningly evoked and this is clearly written from first hand experience.

In part two, we are in 2017 and we revisit some of the characters in middle age. Much has changed. I read the second part with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. It's moving, vivid and memorable.

Quite how Andrew O'Hagan has passed me by until now is a mystery as he has had an illustrious career. Here's what I now know...

Andrew O'Hagan was born in Glasgow in 1968 and grew up in Ayrshire. He has three times been nominated for the Booker Prize, and has won the Glenfiddich Writer of the Year Award, the Lost Angeles Times Book Award, and 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 is a contributor to Esquire, the New York Review, and the New Yorker. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at King's College London.

5/5



Summer 1986. A close group of friends from Glasgow have finished school, and before they depart for their various new lives, they descend on Manchester for one unforgettable weekend. Their leader, burning brightest of all, is the great Tully Dawson.

2017. London. James - the quieter, bookish member of the group - receives a devastating message from Tully, asking James to accompany him through his final months, and to grant Tully his final wish.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

He laid it on the table. Ephemeri Vita: or the Natural History and Anatomy of the Ephemeron.

“Eight engraved plates,” I read. “And the date, 1681.”

“A beautiful publication,” he said. “Swammerdam believed that no being was higher than any other being, a revolutionary thought at the time. He wrote this book one summer in Sloten, outside Amsterdam. He filled it with poetry and visions as well as anatomical observations.”

“It's really wonderful,” I said. “Mayflies.”

Author Andrew O'Hagan and I are about the same age, so I need to begin by acknowledging that Mayflies – essentially an examination of the anatomy of a friendship and the evolution of the people in it, firmly rooted in the times they live through – perfectly captured the era and spirit of my own youth before jumping ahead to my own, less manic, present. Opening in 1986, I perfectly recognised that group of wild youth, hair spiked and bouncing off the walls, listening to New Order and Joy Division and The Smiths; that was us; that was me, and I loved every bit of the first half. The second half revisits this group of friends in 2017 – now with their jobs and their families and their mortgages – and circumstances serve to remind us that we are but short-lived mayflies on this earth; and I loved this part, too. I enjoyed every bit of the writing – the big stories and line-by-line – and while I must recognise the particular nostalgic draw this had for me, I reckon it ought to appeal widely. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

What we had that day was our story. We didn't have the other bit, the future, and we had no way of knowing what that would be like. Perhaps it would change our memory of all this, or perhaps it would draw from it, nobody knew. But I'm sure I felt the story of that hall and how we reached it would never vanish.

Told from the perspective of James (Jim, Jimmy, Jimbo; a bookish lad destined to use his brains to rise above his working class roots), Mayflies opens at the beginning of the summer of 1986, as a group of Glaswegian guys, late-teens/early-twenties, plan to attend a punk rock music festival in Manchester. The group is bound by their neighbourhood, pop culture, and politics (these are mostly the kids of striking coal miners in Thatcher's Britain), but they are primarily bound by music – and the joy and abandon that music provided was transporting to read about. The undeniable leader of the group of friends was Tully Dawson, and James states that in his prime Tully “had innate charisma, a brilliant record collection, complete fearlessness in political argument, and he knew how to love you more than anybody else. Other guys were funny and brilliant and better at this and that, but Tully loved you.” The trip to Manchester – all spare funds spent on tickets and a bus ride, the guys don't even know where they'll sleep – the banter between the friends, the joyful recklessness, the drinking and the dancing; everyone should have such an epic story in their past:

“Roll me on,” he said. He turned to us, all portly. “Onto the stage. Roll me.” Martyr for tunes, vampire for drink, Lincoln McCafferty crossed his arms over his chest and we rolled him towards the guitarist's fashionably buckled legs. In the universe of small humiliations, there can surely be few more effective for the guitar hero than the arrival at his feet of a rotund little Scottish guy high on Taboo. The guitarist, disturbed mid-song, shuffled and kicked as Limbo gripped on to his legs. I say gripped, I mean hugged, Limbo nodding in time to the music and gnawing the guy's jeans.

There is a wedding early in the second half of Mayflies and most of the friends are seeing each other for the first time in years. And just as with the titular insect, it can be hard to recognise the youthful forms in the adults we become; adolescence can appear to be an entirely different species. Even the music – as important as food and air at one time – has lost some of its importance:

It used to be so natural, dancing. Because the music defined you and the heart was in step. Then it leaves you. Or does it? Saturday night changes and your body forgets the old compliance. You're not part of it any more and your feet hesitate and your arms stay close to your sides. It's there somewhere, the easy rhythm from other rooms and other occasions, and you're half convinced it will soon come back. It's not the moves – the moves are there – but your connection to the music has become nostalgic, so the body is responding not to a discovery but to an old, dear echo.

Much more than a wedding happens in the second half, and the change in tone between youthful abandon and adult responsibilities can be jarring without benefit of witnessing the years in between, but that's like a mayfly too – moulting from nymph to adult, the only thing that matters is how little time we have in the end (apparently, the female adult mayfly's lifespan can be as short as five minutes; sigh.) A few more quotes:

• Being young is a kind of warfare in which the great enemy is experience.

• You are a human being. And that's an unstable condition that ends badly for all of us.

• It occurred to me that though Clogs was young – he couldn't have been more than twenty-two – I thought of him as old, the way he leaned to one side, and smoked his cigarette like someone taking particular measures against pain.

Again, this felt written for me – I was backpacking in Europe in the summer of 1986 and met exactly these people; my friends back home were exactly these people – but no matter the reason, I found Mayflies to be perfectly satisfying.

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bittersweet story. It’s about friendship, love, youth, adulthood, life and death.

Mayflies begins in a Scottish town in 1986 with James and Tully about to embark on a trip to Manchester with a group of friends. They are living in the moment, enjoying their youth and not thinking too much about what their futures hold. They love to have a good time by drinking, making literary, movie, and sport references. Somehow most of their arguments lead back to Margaret Thatcher. Then, fast forward to the present time, the friends have drifted apart, but James and Tully are still close. Tully reveals to James that he is terminally ill and the two embark on a new journey. In their youth Tully was like a big brother to James, and now it is James’ turn to support Tully.

Most of the music and sports references went way over my head, so I didn’t particularly enjoy those sections in the first half of this book. In the second half, there is a marked difference in the tone of the novel, it’s a lot more adult, less chaotic.

I wish the book’s description signalled that half of it would deal with the topic of cancer and assisted death. Neither are topics I would choose to read about, but decided to push through anyway. If you don’t mind reading those themes, you may enjoy this book. The writing is beautiful, insightful, and nostalgic.

CW: death, assisted death, cancer.

Thanks to Netgalley, McClelland & Stewart (Penguin Random House) for an e-arc in exchange for my honest opinions.

[Seán Coireall M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listening to drunk people is never enjoyable. They always think they’re more interesting, insightful and funny than they really are. In the first part of Mayflies, set in 1986, a group of drunk film and music obsessives blabber on. In the second part, set in 2017, the now middle-aged drunk film and music obsessives continue to blabber on. A tedious and humourless read. Mayflies is definitely in the top three worst books I’ve read this year.

[Atri · Rating 4 out of 5]

An elegiac memoir that celebrates the halcyon days of adolescent friendship, the indelible intimacy, and the sublime moments that define lives and create memories that are reified and sublimated through nostalgia and poignancy.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5)

Perfectly bittersweet distillation of how it feels to be eighteen and off your face dancing to your favourite tunes with 'life' miles in the distance; the grimy grandeur and epic nonsense of it; the fearless euphoria of having nothing but bands and films and books (and occasionally, politics) to argue about. The relegation of tricky stuff to the back-burner. And then: the comedown as reality slowly chips away. But not everything is lost, O'Hagan convincingly suggests -- some things are so magic they can't fade.

I think I read this at just the right time, and have nothing but gratitude for the author for in particular a first half that spends much of its time on streets I know and have great memories of, and which is a pitch-perfect encapsulation of teen lads on the rampage. The second half offers a sad yet fitting culmination to a real triumph, hopefully and deservedly a Booker longlistee in just over a week's time.

"They say you know nothing at eighteen. But there are things you know at eighteen that you will never know again. Morrissey would lose his youth, and not just his youth, but the gusto that took him across the stage with a banner saying 'The Queen is Dead' is a thing of permanence.

Nobody at that age needs more than what Limbo McCafferty had in abundance. He had vitality. He had the spirit of resistance in that single moment. And as the final encore bristled and rose to a perfect confusion, Limbo appeared on the stage, going past crewmen and bouncers to take up residence by the drums, dancing and smiling for eternity, the crowd cheering him on and spiriting the light in his direction."


Thank you to NetGalley for an advance reading copy of this book which was given in exchange for an honest review.

[Stay Fetters · Rating 3 out of 5]

"They say you know nothing at eighteen. But there are things you know at eighteen that you will never know again."

The year is 1986. The Clash broke up, IT by Stephen King is the number one book, and Friday the 13th: Part 6 was scaring up some viewers. It was also the year that yours truly was born. It was a wild year and one I would have liked to experience as someone older.

This one fell into my lap one day because of the character's love of movies and music. Both of those are a huge part of my life, add in books and my life is complete. This definitely sounded like the perfect book for me and I'm really glad that I got the opportunity to read this one. It was heartfelt and emotional with a deep companionship that'll last a lifetime.

I’m glad that I finally read this one. It was written in a way that I wasn’t used to and I enjoy trying new things. Loved the writing style. It was so unique that I couldn't help but enjoy it. The story was an okay one. One that I thought I would love more than I actually did. I mean, it was good but not something I would read again. That ending will definitely tug at your heartstrings.

Tully was such a lovable character and instantly a favorite. He was such a strong-willed person with great taste in music. His personality shined through on every page and I desperately wanted to be friends with him.

Mayflies was told in two parts, 1986 and 2017. Younger days and older ones. Even though I felt an instant connection with the younger days, that connection still stayed throughout the rest of the novel. It was okay for a one-time read and one that I'll pass on.

[Lauren Gilmour · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read a lot of great Scottish fiction recently so thought I'd pick this up. The first thing I'll say is that I don't get it. I'm a fairly intelligent person, I've been to university but I still didn't 'get' this. It's supposed to be a novel about two working class lads but the dialogue in the book is nothing close to what working class boys from the west coast of Scotland would sound like. In fact, it's pretentious in all honesty. It's like your Dad trying to write a funny book and failing miraculously. I gave up halfway through.

[John Gilbert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan, but I did not even like this.

A small group of young Scottish males in 1986, keen on the music scene and on their way to Manchester for a festival with all their favourites. What I witnessed in the first 15% was young male stupidity, drugs, drinking, swearing and basically living on the fringe of society. I found the book crass, the characters non engaging and pretty boring actually.

I'm sure Mr O'Hagen may have brought it all together into some kind of growing into manhood sort of story, but I was not at all enthralled with their early journey.

DNF at 15%

[Lavinia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just lovely, tender and evocative, a story of a friendship I’ll never have. While I liked the first part for the ‘80s references (I’ve stated this before and I’ll do it again if necessary: 1986 was a perfect year, with respect to music and film), and loved its dynamics and urgency, I had problems distinguishing between the guys. Apart from Tully and Jimmy, I couldn’t tell who’s who, I can’t even remember their names, and it’s such a pity, because books focused on groups of friends are one of my favourite things to read.

The second part, though a bit too sentimental at the beginning, grew on me little by little. It makes you face things you might think are too far or too unlikely to happen to you, and I have to admit, I wept a couple of times. And deep down in my heart, I hope they played "The Whole of the Moon" at Tully and Anna's wedding.

This book is filled to the brim with music, film and books references. If you’re a sucker for them, it might be for you. Also, someone should turn it into a film. Oh, and now I’m slightly obsessed with the illustrations from "Ephemeri vita", and I need to browse a copy asap.

[✨ jami ✨]

dnf. bruh I thought this would be way spicier than it is.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I was having a high-anxiety day and I couldn't face the stack of quizzes I was supposed to be marking, so I took some time at my desk to drink some tea and finish reading this book (perfectly allowable, by the way, in case you're getting all judgey about me slacking on work time). And there I was, alone in my office at work, crying at my desk. Everything can be so intense when you're young--friendship, certainly--and the things that interest you REALLY interest you--that band you like is THE BEST BAND EVER and anyone who likes that band you can't stand is just completely tasteless; judgements are sharper and more uncompromising because life hasn't taught you to compromise yet, and your sense of identity is so tied up with things like the music you listen to and the teams you support and the shows you watch and the clothes you wear that you assume everyone else's identity is similarly defined, so liking different bands means you are completely different people. And things that you do in that crucial liminal period between being a child and being a fully fledged adult take on a weight and importance that is hard to match in later life (this is why people get so hung up on things that happened when they were in high school and university). In this case, it was a group trip to a music festival in Manchester in 1986 (just as Manchester was becoming Madchester, the centre of the British pop universe). That weekend lives on in the memory of the narrator three decades later and somehow he is still 18 and his best friend Tully is still shouting outside a bar and that girl he never saw again is still smiling at him across the crowded dancefloor and he and Tully are still gasping when they see the Smiths coming down the stairs in a pub and they are still falling asleep in a bus shelter and raging against Thatcher, even though they are now middle-aged and have jobs and wives and have just gotten unimaginably bad news from the doctor. Then and now are still tied up together in one package and the untying of that package is beautiful and painful and joyous and absurd. And so there I was, crying at my desk.

[Larry H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew O'Hagan's Mayflies is a powerful and poignant look at friendship and how far we will go to help a friend.

James and Tully met in a small Scottish town in 1986. They are drawn to one another by their love of music and film, their difficult relationships with their fathers, and their devil-may-care attitude, although the 20-year-old Tully embodies that far more than James. But theirs is a fierce, loyal friendship.

“He had innate charisma, a brilliant record collection, complete fearlessness in political argument, and he knew how to love you more than anybody else. Other guys were funny and brilliant and better and this and that, but Tully loved you.”

Along with some friends, they make an epic trip to Manchester that summer to see one of their favorite bands, The Sex Pistols. On that trip they vow to always go at life differently.

In 2017, James learns that Tully is dying. As always, Tully wants to live—and leave—life on his own terms, so he asks James for help. Can a friendship be so strong you’d truly do anything for your friend?

Mayflies is a book in two parts, really—it’s ebullient and buzzing with energy at the start, and it’s moving and tremendously thought-provoking at the end. I’ll admit I struggled with the dialect in which the story was told, which put me at a bit of a disconnect, but this is still so moving. With one of my friends currently at the end of his life, I can only wonder how I’d react in the same situation as the book describes.

NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada provided me a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.

Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/the.bookishworld.of.yrralh/.

[piperitapitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un romanzo diviso in due, di cui non ho apprezzato la prima parte per tanti motivi (due stelle), ma ho amato immensamente la seconda (quattro stelle, anche di più). Sarebbero tre stelle di media, ma gliene darei anche tre e mezza, perché uno dei motivi per cui non ho apprezzato la prima parte è stato il disinteresse musicale, ma anche un po' la forma, e a questo proposito, a giudicare da quanto detto da amici che ne sanno un po' di più di me, non è da escludere qualche problemino di traduzione.

[William Gwynne]

Watched the recent adaptation and instantly felt the need to read this short book driven by the themes of friendship, and identity, as well as both how different we are as adults, but also the parallels that are so similar from who we were as teenagers.

This was a great read that I think will feel relatable to almost all. These themes are so prevalent throughout most peoples lives, and this was written so beautifully, with friendships displayed in a natural and organic way.