‘It scares the health out of me,’ he sang from the Bodines song.
He sighed and looked into the yellow distance. ‘I totally love those words,’ he said,’and I wish they were mine.’
It was always the way with Tully: keeping his worries close.
I’m constantly captivated by covers and I’m embarrassed to admit they are often a deciding factor in what I choose to read. The Mayflies cover is no exception as the energy and life depicted immediately drew me in.
It’s the summer of 1986 and there’s a music festival in Manchester. Tully Dawson rounds up the troops and they leave Scotland, embarking on a weekend full of chaos and enough “living in the moment” to fill any Type-A reader (me) with stress and apprehension, all of which you learn through the narrations of his best friend James. Thirty years later, James gets a call with news that forces a reckoning with time, relationships, and the nostalgia of youth.
I find most of the fiction I read circling around female narratives and I liked the change of reading about the depth of male friendships. Tully and James are rebels at heart, raging against the impact of Thatcherism and society’s expectations, and their personalities and perceptions of the world around them (both in their younger and older selves) are absolutely captivating. The boys live life wrapped up in a world of music and films, using the words of others to make sense of their situations, and as a movie-quoter myself, I felt a particular kinship to that.
I’ve read a lot of books that switch back and forth between time periods to depict longer storylines so I appreciated the change offered by O’Hagan as the book is split in two parts, telling all of one section in time before moving to the next. In addition to the structure of the book, I enjoyed the contrast of Glaswegian slang and crude humor in the dialogue with the more poetic personal thoughts of the narrator. The language used felt authentic to each character and I enjoyed getting a taste of different writing based on the moment at hand.
Mayflies is as fun and lively as it is deep and difficult. I wrote this review listening to some of the songs referenced throughout the book and feel closer to Tully and Noodles because of it.
Personal rating: 8.5/10
Recommend? Definitely
Re-read? Potentially
Time: 1:52
Bonus Content:
The quote by William Butler Yeats at the beginning of the novel:
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends.