Overview

'An immensely engaging writer: wry and witty, and insightful.' Sunday Times
'A vivid and meticulous writer.' Observer

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...