Utopia Avenue
The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller
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4.3 • 112 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
'ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY' INDEPENDENT
The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller
'Wildly entertaining'
SPECTATOR
'A stand-out triumph'
SUNDAY TIMES
'Superb'
LITERARY REVIEW
'Impressive'
NEW YORKER
'Highly entertaining'
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
A story of music and dreams, drugs and madness, love and grief, from the acclaimed author of Cloud Atlas
The year is 1967 and word is spreading about a new band on London's psychedelic scene - an unlikely combination of a female folksinger, a blues bassist, a jazz drummer and an electric guitarist. Strangers to each other and from widely different backgrounds, together they create magic. Meet Utopia Avenue.
This is the story of a unique band's brief, blazing journey from Soho dives to chart success and on to the promised land of America, just when the Summer of Love was giving way to something much darker - a tale of dreams, drugs, sexuality, madness and grief, and of fame's pitfalls. Capturing a time when youthful idealism collided with jaded reality, this bewitching novel celebrates the power of music to connect across divides, define an era and thrill the soul.
PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL
'A thrilling and gifted writer'
FINANCIAL TIMES
'Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good'
DAILY MAIL
'Mitchell is, clearly, a genius'
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
'An author of extraordinary ambition and skill'
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
'A superb storyteller'
THE NEW YORKER
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This unique novel tells the whirlwind story of the eponymous band, Utopia Avenue, from 1967 inception in a seedy Soho bar to its chart-topping peaks. David Mitchell plays with the elasticity of language to mimic music and his rhythmical prose parallels the psychedelic rock ’n’ roll world we are so vividly transported to. But the power of Mitchell’s writing lies not only in how he dances between plot and poetry but in his ability to create fully realised characters. With passages of intense stream of consciousness which are sometimes dark and uncomfortable, we dive into the minds of the four band members. These unforgettable characters are the reason we are still thinking about Utopia Avenue long after the final page.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mitchell's magical, much anticipated latest (after Slade House) is a rollicking, rapturous tale of 1960s rock 'n' roll. Utopia Avenue emerges from the London music scene as a ragtag band of four unforgettable characters, assembled by manager Levon Frankland as a "psychedelic-folk-rock" supergroup. There's Jasper de Zoet, the dark and enigmatic lead guitarist; Elf Holloway, the ethereal songstress on keyboards; Griff Griffin, the gruff but lovable drummer; and Dean Moss, heartthrob bassist and lead singer. Dean, who escaped poverty and his abusive father, turns to music as his outlet of expression. De Zoet seeks a dangerous escape from his schizophrenia in a mystical "psychosurgery" treatment. Meanwhile, Griff, a "drummer-of-many-parts" according to the Village Voice ("Sounds as if my arms and legs unscrew," Griff says), is the glue that keeps them together, and Elf circuitously navigates her sexuality and eventually finds a surprising new love. From dingy nightclubs to the Chelsea Hotel and room service in California, and cameos from Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, and members of the Rolling Stones, Mitchell follows the band's sex- and drug-fueled rise to fame in 1968 and the group's abrupt, heartbreaking end. Each chapter name is the title of a song and focuses on one of the main characters in the band, and Mitchell unspools at least a dozen original song lyrics and descriptions of performances that are just as fiery and infectious as his narratives. Mitchell makes the best use of his familiar elements, from recurring characters to an innovative narrative structure, delivering more fun, more mischief, and more heart than ever before. This is Mitchell at his best.
Customer Reviews
Mesmerising
An amazing tale , beautifully descriptive, emotive and impossible To put down !!!
It hurts to leave
David Mitchell manages a rare thing, he seamlessly weaves a fictional band into one of the most famous and defining periods of musical and cultural history, and then he seduces you with its story, I didn’t just believe in the band, I fell in love with them, I ache to hear those albums!
With an almost spooky disregard for convention Mitchell sets about creating an alternate history and a sweeping ambitious epic, we are treated to a philosophical and humanist Gem of a book wrapped in warmth rye humour and the beautiful tragedy of the human experience. The overlapping looping time structure perfectly captures and describes not only the events but helps to underpin the feel and tone of this crazy period of history.
My only problem is finding a book to follow this Inspiring incredible journey.
Enough with the superlatives…
So yeah I liked it.
A few classic passages and a lot of filler
As a massive David Mitchell fan for 20 years, I hate to say this but Utopia Avenue is at best patchy and at worst cringeworthy. DM said in interview that he had to start over several times and one wonders why he ploughed on writing it. He talks about feeling the weight of responsibility for a whole ecosystem of agents, publishers etc on his shoulders. It almost feels like one of them sorted him some adderall and said ‘can you get it finished ASAP, you next novel is overdue.’ Then nobody let him know it’s disjointed, drab in parts and WAY too much dialogue, with minor characters we don’t care about having major events but then the novel suddenly ending when something dramatic happens to one of the major characters. They just rushed it out to hungry fans.
The myriad meetings with swinging sixties stars probably read great if you’re high but seem mostly cliched and inauthentic to sober eyes. The muso musings made my brain ache (how can a major 7th chord possibly be described as ‘demented’?), and Mitchell never decides whether the character of Dean is a bassist or rhythm guitarist. Mitchell should have heeded the old adage quoted within the novel: writing about music is like dancing about architecture. And he makes a hash of it.
Where the novel DID grip me, exploding into brilliant writing and enchanting me into another world, DM is recycling ideas settings and characters from earlier novels. These parts (when they finally come halfway through) are mind blowing, and Mitchell seems to have found his old form at this point as subsequent descriptions of the swinging sixties suddenly improve especially the world of Laurel Canyon and Joni Mitchell’s imagined pad in Los Angeles.
It’s a shame to see a beloved artist go off the boil, but I guess Mitchell is human after all and like Radiohead seems to be running out of good new ideas while anxious to get the best of his unfinished older ideas published before he runs out of steam completely.