Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid Published by Ballantine Books on March 5, 2019
Pages: 355
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Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six: The band's album Aurora came to define the rock 'n' roll era of the late seventies, and an entire generation of girls wanted to grow up to be Daisy. But no one knows the reason behind the group's split on the night of their final concert at Chicago Stadium on July 12, 1979 . . . until now.
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock 'n' roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.
Bantering Books Review
I think Taylor Jenkins Reid loves Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac as much as I do.
She must — anyone who knows anything about Stevie and the Mac cannot help but see the glaring similarities between their story and that of the fictional Daisy Jones & The Six. This isn’t necessarily a negative . . . but I do think that, for me, parts of the story did feel like a recycling of the Mac’s history.
But still . . . I liked it. I liked it quite a bit, actually. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy the whole Behind the Music, interview-transcript format of the novel, but in this instance, I found it to be an effective method of storytelling. I was completely sucked in. (With the exception of the Aurora songwriting segment. Reid lost me there for a little while.)
It was also surprising to me that the book actually seemed to be more about Billy and The Six, rather than Daisy. Daisy seemed more of a secondary character, with Billy, Graham, and Camilla taking center stage.
This is the second novel that I’ve read by Reid, and she is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Her writing is graceful and fluid . . . and she knows how to subtly deliver an emotional message. When I think about her words, at times . . . really THINK about them . . . I find a deeper, underlying wisdom there.
Daisy Jones & The Six is definitely a fun ride. Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, baby . . . ya’ gotta love it.
