Their charismatic leader is Tully Dawson,who is smart,irreverent,and worldly beyond his years. He is,in the eyes of the novel’s narrator James,‘‘the picture of innocence,the soul of anarchy’’. It is Tully who rallies the group to an uproarious weekend away,in which six close friends on the cusp of adulthood tumble down to Manchester,at that time the centre of the pop-music universe,for a showcase gig headlined by the hippest bands of the day:New Order,The Fall,and The Smiths.
The second half of the novel picks up the story three decades later. James receives a call from Tully,who informs him that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has only months to live. From that point on,Mayflies becomes a novel about the wrenching business of dying and the kinds of solemn reflections that the occasion demands.
The simple two-part structure dividesMayflies evenly between innocence and experience,joy and sorrow. Much of its understated emotional force derives from the straightforward way these two sides of life illuminate each other.
Early in the novel,there is an amusing scene in which James misses out on a labouring job because the boss spots a copy of Sartre’sNausea in his pocket and dismisses him as a pretentious egghead,but Mayflies is notable for the scrupulously unpretentious manner in which it addresses existential questions. It recognises that the profundity of death requires no rhetorical elevation or dramatic embellishment. The inevitable conclusion is all the more affecting for its sombre restraint.
O’Hagan has made no secret of the fact thatMayflies is autobiographical and that the character of Tully is based on an old friend named Keith Martin. But the novel is more than just a heartfelt personal tribute. Its elegiac quality extends to its depiction of the working-class culture that shapes the personalities of James and Tully. They forge their enduring friendship against the backdrop of the social dislocations caused by Thatcherism.
The humiliation that was visited upon a generation of northern working-class men is represented in the novel by the shadowy presence of Tully’s estranged father,a defeated man who retreats into embittered alcoholism.