Summary
The oral history for the greatest band you’ve never heard of comes with an authentic voice, engaging characters, and a terrific soundtrack (inside your head).
Coming with all the buzzy buzz possible, thanks to the forthcoming Amazon series, here is the story of Daisy Jones & the Six: the greatest band from the 70s. Or at least they are within the confines of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel, tracing the rise and fall of a fictional group. Based loosely on a mix of the bands Fleetwood Mac and Civil Wars, Reid presents the life and times of the players in the grand rock tradition of an oral history.
The format doesn’t immediately lend itself to engagement: these are, after all, a group of musicians talking about songs and careers that never existed. Yet Reid’s approach rapidly immerses you in the lives of the band including two sets of brothers, their wives and extended families, their friends, producers, scenesters, and critics. Reid does such a remarkable job with the conceit that you’d be forgiven for thinking that this isn’t a documentary.
Built around the fractious dichotomy of Daisy and Billy, we soon have a tremendous amount of investment in their wellbeing. Billy identifies as an addict early in the piece, for example, and constantly seems to teeter on the brink of falling off the wagon. His wife (and partner) Camilla is a force of nature that keeps him on the straight and narrow. One might find themselves gripping the book (or Kindle or audio player) tightly every time Billy looks like he’ll backslide, mostly because Reid gives us the space to genuinely care.
Which is kind of like the music that the eponymous band creates. We don’t hear it, but we feel the weight of its meaning. Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco fame) once said in an interview that his music doesn’t make people feel anything, but instead gives them permission to express how they already feel (or words to that effect). The hyperlinked nature of the oral history style shows that those defining life moments, like a good song, aren’t created or felt by a single person. Nor do they mean the same thing to everyone.
A final act reveal of the identity of the ‘author’ of the book adds another layer, and a melancholy ripple effect to the events surrounding the disintegration of the band. It might be one turn too far, which is something in a book full of individual excesses. It’s not harmful to the narrative but it doesn’t necessarily add anything either. It’s a small thing really.
Reid rounds out the book with a collection of lyrics from the songs mentioned, and one could spend hours pouring over them to look at the hidden interactions between the characters. Or, like most music, you could enjoy them as their own thing. Either way, Amazon is going to have a hell of a challenge in finding the right tone to bring Reid’s Aurora – the ‘greatest album’ of the 70s – to life.
2019 | US | WRITER: Taylor Jenkins Reid | PUBLISHER: Penguin (US) | LENGTH: 368 pages | RELEASE DATE: 5 March 2019
