Andrew O'Hagan: Heydays in the Haçienda (2020 Event)

‘Life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant to last.’ The
post-punk protagonists of Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies would
probably describe the lyrics of Prince’s hit pop song 1999 as
‘Yankee pish,’ but O’Hagan’s novel catches exactly the mood of
the song. The ephemeral nature of life, burning brightly and then
so soon extinguished, lies at the heart of this soulful story of
two lads from small-town Scotland.


Tully and James are growing up in Irvine, steeped in the music of
the Fire Engines, the Fall and the poetry of John Cooper Clarke.
Together they rush towards the climax of their youth in an
unforgettable, friendship-defining weekend in Manchester. Thirty
years later, Tully calls his old pal with some troubling news.


The fine grain of working-class teenagers’s lives; the blether,
the binge-drinking and nights on the pull: Mayflies sees Andrew
O’Hagan in scintillating, heartbreakingly good form. He talks
with fellow Scottish writer, columnist and doyen of the literary
salon, Damian Barr in this event recorded live
at the 2020 Book Festival.