Anna Russell on the writer Andrew O’Hagan and his latest novel, “Caledonian Road,” which has drawn comparisons to Tom Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities” for its skewering of London society.
If one were to lay Booth’s 1898-9 map over present-day Islington, it would not look too dissimilar. Home to wealthy intellectuals, writers, and liberal politicians—“champagne socialists,” if we’re generalizing—the borough also has one of the highest proportions of social housing residents in the capital. Walking through the area, the disparity is obvious; it is not unusual to encounter a large housing project near an immaculate garden square, bordered by rows of expensive terraced houses.
He’d say, ‘Is this really the best you can do here? Is this really the best way you can describe this? Has this not been said before?’ ” In O’Hagan’s novel, “Mayflies,” which was published in 2020, he draws heavily on his childhood. The story, which opens in a small Scottish town in the nineteen-eighties, follows two young friends, James and Tully, and is based on O’Hagan’s real-life friendship with a man named Keith Martin.
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