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Through his latest book, writer Andrew O’Hagan delivers a series of eight short essays originally produced for a broadcast series. The style centers on reflection, covering a lost childhood friend from the housing project where he came of age in 1970s Scotland. Furthermore, he recalls former colleagues at a well-known journal, at which O’Hagan rose to prominence in the 1990s, and his adult daughter’s past make-believe companion.

Friendship Explored

The author reflects on why thespians, government figures, and members of the GOP make bad friends, the factors behind why the novelist Colm Tóibín stands out as a great companion, and in what manner the nature of friendship is influenced by grief and the internet.

“What defines a friend in the digital era? … Is it possible to trust someone you’ve never actually spoken to …?”

In his view, online interaction is more damaging than the former, a perspective that may not shock from an author who likens friendship to “a collection of devotions that turn in the head like vinyl discs”. He worries that people avoid visiting bars because they’re occupied making digital purchases.

Home Life Versus Companionship

In these pages, friendship liberates whereas relatives limit. Coming of age with three brothers, O’Hagan’s household was a “realm of challenges”, a “palace of stress”, with an unloving father who previously had their dog purposely removed to rural areas and freed, lost forever. At primary school, relief came from exploring derelict areas with Mark, a nearby friend around his years.

“An exceptional companion can invoke a fresh reality, and, most importantly, the potential start of a transformed self, pulled away from domestic limits.”

In time, O’Hagan reframes the concept to call the companionship of an additional acquaintance “a ticket to becoming the kind of person you aspired to be”.

Imagery of Rebirth

Images of journey and transformation feel potent within the text suffused with implicit wonder at the journey O’Hagan has advanced from his youth. In one section, he arranges products in his youth at a nearby supermarket in Ayrshire; on another, he attends a celebration for a recent romantic partner at “the designer boutique on Park Avenue”. He freely admits his tendency to reference celebrities – clubbing with the Stone Roses, whisky with Christopher Hitchens.

The Limits of Disclosure

But while numerous events unfolds in the essays, it isn’t a full confession. O’Hagan understands that bonding is rarely just a smooth path, but he remains cautious, at times hesitant, about the subject’s shadow side: slights, misinterpretations, rifts (“A celebrity actor I know who asked me to attend his nuptials, but he failed to respond when I extended an invitation to my ceremony”).

The extent of revelation, of candor, only goes so far: although there’s a brief mention of his failed try to ghostwrite Julian Assange’s memoir (the WikiLeaks founder struggled “to befriend himself”, according to the author, tactfully), he leaves out about his detailed report for the LRB on the devastating incident, interesting in this context mainly as the subsequent controversy must have reminded him who stood by him.

An Intriguing Bond

Partly for these reasons, the most fascinating section in the book focuses on the deceased author from Ireland Edna O’Brien, whom he first met in London in 2009 after leaving Seamus Heaney’s 70th birthday party. When he invites her to lunch at a renowned restaurant in Mayfair (““Excellent … seek out the corner seating, favored by the artist”), it commences a 15-year friendship during which “we turned to each other to develop concepts we couldn’t form by ourselves”, in his distinctive wording, subtly clarified when he eventually reflects on “the soft sonatas we used to listen to while I supported her editorial work”.

Insightful Glimpses

Out of all the figures referenced in the book, she stands alone as permitted an insight into the author’s inner self. Throughout many of his stories, he’s the guy who emerges favorably – whether as a schoolboy crying about Charlotte’s Web while rougher peers mocked, or in the role of a durable celebrant who is nonetheless quickest to awaken the morning after an extensive evening – so your ears prick up somewhat when, out of the blue, O’Brien informs the author (observed, for once, instead of watching) that she perceives that he is “someone with scars who deals with it perfectly and quite convincingly”.

Final Reflections

In a work of reminiscence – that describes this book – it might be considered to not reveal all, at the very least. Ultimately, these recollections and reflections – in an attractively compact format, perfect as a present – make you curious regarding a fuller life story O’Hagan may produce, if and when opts to do so.