Presumably because a small part of it takes place in Salford, the epigraph to Andrew O’Hagan’s latest novel consists of four lines from Ewan MacColl’s ‘Dirty Old Town’. More fitting, though, might have been six words from the Undertones’ ‘Teenage Kicks’: ‘Teenage dreams, so hard to beat.’
The first half of the book follows a group of lads from Ayrshire as they excitedly prepare for, excitedly travel to and excitedly attend a post-punk music festival in Manchester in 1986. The narrator is the bookish 18-year-old Jimmy Collins, whose life bears a close resemblance to O’Hagan’s at the same age and time. But the focus is firmly on his friend Tully Dawson, who has ‘innate charisma, a brilliant record collection, complete fearlessness in political argument, and… knew how to love you more than anybody else’.
In some ways, then, this is a book in the vein of The Great Gatsby and Brideshead Revisited (both mentioned in passing) where a dazzled narrator pays tribute to a dazzling chum. There is, however, one difference: here the narrator’s admiration never wavers for a second. Just occasionally, the more heretical reader might wonder if Tully’s extended comic riffs and political diatribes are always so completely marvellous. But if the same thought ever crosses the mind of either Jimmy Collins or Andrew O’Hagan, they show no sign of it.
Still, at a time when male friendship — as opposed to the sainted female kind — is often depicted as superficial, essentially competitive or both, O’Hagan’s tenderness feels distinctly refreshing. So too does his awareness that all the piss-taking, endless quoting from favourite films and shared musical passions, far from being a substitute for intimacy are an expression of it. Nor do they preclude more conventionally intimate conversations.
Meanwhile, back with those teenage kicks, the group’s time in Manchester (and Salford) is properly thrilling, as they drink joyously, witness the Smiths in their pomp and order from the laminated drugs menu at the Hacienda.
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