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.

"What a stunning novel." - Graham Norton

"Funny, passionate, heartbreaking." - Tracey Thorn

"Life-enhancing." - Scotsman

"Unforgettable." - Cólm Toibín

"Spectacular." - Books of the Year, Spectator

"An incredible book . . . about men and how important friendship can be to men." - Douglas Stuart

"My god this is gorgeous. Wild, wise, wonderful . . . Absolutely brilliant." - Russell T Davies

Andrew O'Hagan was born in Glasgow. His novel Mayflies won the Christopher Isherwood Prize. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize, was voted one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, and 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.

Andrew also writes regularly for The New Yorker, Esquire, and the New York Review of Books. In 2024, he was made an Honorary Professor of Literature at the University of Glasgow.

The BBC adaptation of Mayflies, produced by Synchronic Films, won a BAFTA for best scripted drama in 2023.

Caledonian Road is to become a returning TV drama, produced by Sinestra Films, directed by Johan Renck (who directed Chernobyl for HBO), and the show runner is Will Smith who wrote Slow Horses.

My last novel, Mayflies, published n 2021, is the story of Tully Dawson, a music-loving hero, the narrator's best friend. They made a small legend of their glory years. In the summer of 1986 their shared love of bands and politics projects them, with a group of their chums, to a festival in Manchester and the very pinnacle of their youth. Thirty years later, the telephone rings. Tully is facing the crisis of his life and that old friendship is put to the test.

I was overwhelmed by the way Mayflies was taken up by readers. I still get hundreds of messages from readers throughout the world -- men and women who identify with the deep friendship of Tully, Jimmy and the boys. Many of my readers lost someone in their lives and the book, in a way, seemed to become a rallying place for readers who'd experienced such personal loss. The book, and it's adaptation by the BBC, really struck a chord and the story is very close to my heart.