Mayflies, Andrew OHagan
Mayflies, Andrew OHagan
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Mayflies

Author: Andrew O'Hagan

Narrator: Andrew O'Hagan

Unabridged: 7 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/18/2021

Synopsis

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?

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Andy on December 29, 2022

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.......more

Goodreads review by Angela M on May 09, 2021

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 we......more

Goodreads review by Vit on December 14, 2024

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......more

Goodreads review by Christine on July 24, 2021

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 t......more

Goodreads review by Peter on November 08, 2020

"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......more

Quotes

"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

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