Author(s): Andrew O'Hagan

Novel | England

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

In the summer of 1986, James and Tully ignite a friendship based on music, films and the rebel spirit. With school over, they rush towards a magical weekend of youthful excess in Manchester played out against the greatest soundtrack ever recorded. And there a vow is made: to go at life differently.

Thirty years on, the phone rings. Tully has news.

Review:
 "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
"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
"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

Author Biography: 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.