The summer of 1986, James is eighteen, between school and university and unencumbered by parents having responded to their separation by ‘divorcing’ them from his life. Instead, he dips into his friend Tully’s family life. Tully’s ambition is shaped by his father – he wants to be nothing like him, crushed by Thatcherism and still sulking.
Where Tully leads, others follow, and this summer that will be to Manchester for a music festival celebrating ten years since the Sex Pistols played the Free Trade Hall. Friends - Tibbs, Limbo, and Hogg - come on board and soon the five of them are heading south on the bus from industrial Ayrshire to sample the delights that 1980’s Manchester holds for those into their music: The International, Piccadilly Records, The Hacienda, and the GMex Festival.
It is an innocently hedonistic weekend of music, drinking, drugs, and women (if not sex). I was in Manchester in the 80’s, but a decade too old for that scene, which means for me the references to groups, songs, and drugs are obscure and frankly interchangeable. Not that it matters, you still get the drift – youth at one of its magic moments, ending sat on the roof of the YMCA with the city spread out below.
From that night the book skips thirty years. The boys have gone their separate ways but remain in contact, so it is no surprise for James to get a phone call from Tully. The shock comes with the news that his friend is seriously ill and needs to ask a favour.
The book is a perceptive portrayal of male friendship at both ends of adulthood. It is full of contrasts: the feelings of invulnerability in youth and mortality in age; the love of life and the poignancy of realising its limits; the joy of friendship and the pain of letting it go that sometimes requires selflessness.
The first half is
written with great joie de vivre; the second half with heart-wringing
sensitivity. All well worth the emotional investment.
No comments:
Post a Comment