Five years it's been. But when David Mitchell is absent from booklists, it seems much longer. And if Slade House was a bit of a downer and a little too weird for you, take a walk down Utopia Avenue. Actually, it's more of a hop, skip and a jump: a mostly good vibrations romp through the musical heyday of the 60s. The novel chronicles the public life cycle of a band thrown together like one of my anti-recipes, a bit of this and that and a dash of whatever. Readers who were lost in Cloud Atlas, drowning in Black Swan Green or out of synch with Bone Clocks will find this novel more accessible -- just buy a ticket and take your seat. For Mitchell's missionaries, never fear: there is a mystery wrapped inside an enigma and the best knock-knock joke you've ever heard. Along the way, you'll catch a tune from every famous musician of the era. Utopia rocks!

David Mitchell is always worth reading, and "Utopia Avenue" is no exception. But compared to Mitchell's *other* works, it's a bit of a letdown.

This story of an obscure British band's formation and rise to fame doesn't seem to have a lot on its mind, relative to Mitchell's other volumes. There are many attempts to connect it to Mitchell's other novels—most notably , Cloud Atlas's Luisa Rey makes a welcome reappearance here—but these mostly tend to distract rather than delight. An extended digression into the world of Horologists and Anchorites—familiar to readers of The Bone Clocks—is particularly wearisome, and doesn't seem well-integrated thematically with the rest of the story.

Longtime readers of Mitchell's canon can't pass this one up. But it won't bring many new fans into the fold.

Writing: 3.5 Characters: 5 Plot: 4/5

A gritty, detailed and yet expansive, story about the evolution of a top (fictional) pop band (Utopia Avenue) in the late sixties. From obscurity to fame — raw talent discovered, initial deals, touring, and the bribery / flirtation / whatever-it-takes approach to getting the music played. The four main band members come from different backgrounds and blend different musical strengths: Dean — an “angry young bassist” specializing in R&B; Elf — a “folk-scene doyenne”; Jasper — a half Dutch “stratocaster demi-god”; and Griff — a Yorkshire jazz drummer.

A lot of dialog and description is devoted to describing the music itself and the music business. For me personally that was less interesting — I love listening to music but don’t translate writing about music to music itself well — but for those who do enjoy discussing and thinking about those topics there is plenty available.

He did a good job of bringing that musical time to life. Many famous musicians pass through these pages with mini appearances that appear true to recorded history: David Bowie, Keith Moon, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendrix, and Frank Zappa all make realistic cameo appearances. We spend time with the band at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. All the aspects of their world comes out — family issues, possible mental illness, drug use, the “offsprings” of philandering, and philosophies.

Mitchell’s books are sometimes hard to read. They all develop slowly and the writing style is a little more stream of consciousness than I like, but somehow I’m drawn in, and by the end I’m completely in the grip and continue to think about the emerging holistic picture afterwards. As an aside — and it’s a weird aside — one thread of this novel ties in with characters (beings?) that are elements of at least two of his previous works. It’s really just a thread here but this book fits squarely within the Mitchell universe which is not completely founded on the reality most of us share.

Thank you to Random House and Net Galley for this free ARC.

A very different type of book for Mr. David Mitchell but still amazing. If you grew up in the 60's this book will be a great flashback to the start of such a great music scene. The lay out was fun and it was great to get a POV from the different members of the bad.

Covering a short time over 1967 and 1968, Utopia Avenue recounts the early days of a famed rock/folk/blues band of that name in swinging London. Filled with real life people from the artistic scene and brimming with period detail, Mitchell nails the historical novel angle; and by creating four distinct and relatable characters to people his imagined band, Mitchell sets up an interesting scaffold upon which to hang conversations about art and immortality and how to live a life. Somehow, though, this potential didn't pay off for me – interesting things happen in the personal lives of the characters, and I liked seeing how they turned those experiences into art; I was also interested enough in seeing how the music industry works and how long and hard artists need to pay their dues to become an overnight success (yet, is there anything new in this?); but between an overabundance of real life people flitting in and out and an ultimately shoe-horned tie-in to Mitchell's uberverse (which started out fascinating and eventually disappointed me), this didn't, in the end, really feel like a book about the core characters so much as a book about the times they were moving through (And is there anything new to say about the swinging Sixties London scene? At any rate, there's nothing new here.)

Utopia Avenue is the fake rock biography I wanted Daisy Jones and the Six to be, until the hard pivot into Mitchell's horology multiverse. Jasper's mental illness is handled well and is interesting until the US tour where the mystical is shoved down our throats - complete tonal dissonance compared with what everyone else has been and will be up to for the remainder of the book.
I would recommend the story, because it is largely interesting and an enjoyable exploration of the 60s rock scene in London.
Thank you to the publisher, via NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy for review.

David Mitchell does not let you down and takes you places you never thought you would go. There are comparisons with other rock and roll novels, but none invites you into the mind of a bipolar, on-the-spectrum rocker who is fighting with a genetic inner, evil voice. Each member of the Utopia Avenue band has a back story which colors the narrative to the end. We follow them as they write songs, move up the chart, s and hit the big time in LA and San Francisco. All kinds of real musicians that this baby boomer grew up with are present: Lenny (Cohen), David (Bowie) John (Lennon), Frank (Zappa)...you get the picture. The probably unauthorized Spotify soundtrack will entertain as well

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for providing this ARC. This is a must read for David Mitchell fans, but should have a wider appeal as well. I have only read a few of his books (The Bone Clocks and Slade House) both of which I loved. Familiar characters from prior Mitchell books make appearances, but you don’t need to know the backstories to follow along in Utopia Avenue. I’ve heard his novels called not accessible but that’s definitely not true here. It’s an easy to follow story about a fictional band in mid to late 1960s England. If you liked Daisy Jones and the Six, you should like this as well. I recommend this novel for a wide audience.

Not quite what I expected, but fantastic nonetheless. A great new novel from Mitchell after a succession of great, lengthy novels. As a music fan/historian, it was a welcome addition to my library.

It took a bit for me to get into this one, but once it started moving I enjoyed it. The writing (as always) was great. I really loved the different characters. I thought for the longest time this book was just going to be about a band but then we got a nice little Horology/Marinus surprise. I do think that part might get a little “out there” for those not familiar with Mitchell’s previous books, but I for one read and loved The Bone Clocks. This was a very solid read and would definitely recommend to fans of David Mitchell and fans of tales about bands. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for granting early access to this book. I will post this review tomorrow to my Bookstagram and companion Facebook page @thatreadingrealtor.

This is a novel that really works on two levels. On the surface, it's the story of a psychedelic rock band from England, set amid the cultural revolution occurring in English and the USA during the late 60s. Fans of Daisy Jones & the Six or Almost Famous will enjoy it, stuffed as it is with pop culture references and a storyline that moves from character to character as each one's personal and professional lives rapidly change.

For fans of David Mitchell's other novels, there are plenty of references to his other works -- some are subtle and some are definitely not subtle at all. If you aren't familiar with a couple of his novels, there's a section toward the end that may feel jarring and out of place. However, it's somewhat short and is somewhat self-explanatory, so I don't think readers should feel too out-of-their-depths for long. My only complaint with this novel is that it felt too long at times -- the middle third, in particular, was slow-going for me.

As a whole, though, the novel works extremely well, whether you're a Mitchell fan or not. The writing is strong, the characters are engaging and interesting (I particularly enjoyed Jasper's story arc), and I really enjoyed the ending.

Books about imaginary music are hard to pull off. It's one thing to directly reference a real song or singer to give flavor to a narrative but another to invent one from scratch.
This is one of those rare books about music where you're actually a little mad that the music isn't real and you can't pick up the album and hear it.

Somehow David Mitchell has done both. He's written the story of a band that I can almost hear in my head while referencing real musicians and artists in an organic and nearly seamless way.

The Mitchell metaverse runs deep here and of course the moon gray cat appears though I was worried for awhile. The links back to earlier works like Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas, and most obviously The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet are here for the fans but won't alienate or befuddle a first time reader of Mitchell's work.

David Mitchell is back and he’s playing with structure again and as is often the case with Mitchell, the result will depend on how much work the reader is willing to put in.

Mitchell has always demonstrated a respect for his readers as seen by the high level vocabulary he chooses, the manners in which he plays with and even invents language and of course in his experimentations with structure. Readers willing to do some of the heavy lifting will be rewarded with a unique look into the 60s music scene on both sides of the pond in a context that allows one to explore what it means to be human.

While this is definitely a book that focuses on music and creativity (it’s even structured like an LP) it remains firmly planted in the David Mitchell universe. Long time fans will recognize some names and there are twists which involve the sci/fi and fantasy which Mitchell has always made a part of his stories. The result is a novel with rich character development that educates and entertains. For me it is another strong piece of evidence that Mr. Mitchell is one of the greatest living authors writing in English.

In Utopia Avenue, David Mitchell once again proves why he is one of the finest writers of this generation. This is a strange, beautifully written, nostalgic novel about the musical England of 1960s. 

In the time of The Beatles and Rolling Stones, there was another band that almost made it, and Utopia Avenue was its name. 

On the surface, it seems like a very contemporary, easy-to-read novel about the life of a fictional band in the late 60s England. Dean, Jasper, Elf and Griff find themselves in a band put together by an unlikely manager/visionary, Levon . Each band member brings their own personal stories to the band and their songs - from tragic to the absurd. Accompanying them is a revolving door of famous musicians from the late 1900s. There is enough name dropping and musical references to make its own Wikipedia page. 

This is a David Mitchell novel, so not everything is as simple as it seems. The chapters are organized as album tracks, and with each chapter we learn the origins of the songs. But it’s not really about the songs, it’s about being inside their creator’s head.  There are references to others in Mitchell’s literary universe the most prominent by Jasper De Zoet, a descendent of the titular character of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet. The eternal, body-hopping Marinus makes an appearance too. Mitchell continues to explore themes of continuity, redemption, action and consequence and meaning of existence. 

Music is essential to the novel, and Mitchell shows incredible understanding of the craft of music. I can’t even imagine the research it would have taken to understand and then express it in words. Every time Mitchell writes a book, I am sure I will be rewarded by an entirely new experience. And this was no different.

This novel starts at full speed, it drew me in from the first paragraph. The characters are tangible and the record format adds to the immersive quality of the book. I immediately knew the where and when of the book just from its rich detail. This is one I would love to a hardcover copy of. It's also the type of book you read once for discovery and then again just to enjoy the writing.

I received and ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a ride. David Mitchell can do anything with his writing and he goes out and proves this again and again. Even while branching out to what appears to be a 'typical' rock and roll novel, Mitchell keeps this in his own imaginary universe. The characters are clearly drawn and utterly unique. Rock and Roll stereotypes, a bit, but they're their own people throughout.
The plot follows a typical trajectory but does so in a way that constantly surprises. As I was reading, and I did this slowly, I was looking at the page count dreading the end. Utopia Avenue is the type of book you wish could just go on and on and you could keep living with these characters.
Mitchell continues to be one of the greatest writers of our time and Utopia Avenue proves he is absolutely capable of writing whatever he wishes.

I remember when I first read David Mitchell’s “Ghostwritten” I was completely blown away by him. He’s nothing short of genius, and his books are big and cerebral, with wildly inventive stories that cross time and space. With “Utopia Avenue” he’s written what I believe to be his most commercial venture, while still saying true to his sophisticated roots. Set in England in the late sixties the book in a nut shell is a literati “Daisy Jones and the Six”, following the formation and the upward trajectory of an eclectic rock band.
🎸
This is the heydey of the Beatles. When Mick Jagger had just become a household name, and Janis Joplin fought to claim her space as a woman in rock. At first I was concerned the meshing of fictional and real would bother me, but Mitchell like everything else, creates a realistic and seamless blending with real life counterparts,such as Bowie, Jimi Hendrix,Jerry Garcia and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones among others.
Mitchell thoroughly and convincingly drops you in this world. Sometimes to a fault. Having never played an instrument I could care less about chords or frets, and as much as I can appreciate song clever song lyrics, they ring a little hollow without hearing the actual tune.
🎤
It’s no surprise where Mitchell’s ‘plot’ is going so instead he focusing on character: Lead singer Elf Holloway, bass guitar and ladies man, Dean Moss, drummer Peter Griffin, and guitar wizard Jasper de Zoet, great great great grandson of Mitchell’s Jacob de Zoet from one of his previous novels .
One of more than a few Easter eggs hidden in the book for die hard fans.
The book spends the lions share with Elf, Dean and Jasper, relegating Griffin to a bit player which seems a bit glaring considering how fully fleshed out the others are, but this is a minor quibble considering how much ground he covers with the other three.
🎹
While I was never bored by the story, I can’t say I was riveted, and for some it might feel like work if the subject or time period holds no interest for them.
🎫
And although not my personal favorite, I do think it continues to solidly Mitchell as one of the best writers living today who continues to push past traditional storytelling norms.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

If you’re a fan of David Mitchell (I am) and think five years is way too long to go without a Mitchell novel (I do), you’ll probably eat up his latest, Utopia Avenue (I scarfed it down in two sittings). If you love music (yep) and are particularly a fan of the incredibly fertile 1960s music scene in both England and America (check), you’ll almost certainly absolutely revel in the novel (revelry was had). If you enjoy vivid characterization, crisp natural-sounding dialogue, multiple character POVs that sound utterly distinctive, and master craftsperson use of language via word choice, syntax, allusion, etc., (yes, yes, yes, and yes), then your readerly love of great writing will most likely be fully sated (it was). Utopia Avenue isn’t my favorite or most admired Mitchell work, but it may have been the one I most enjoyed in sheer fun and immersion.

The novel follows the creation of an eponymous London band in the mid 60s (“take a prime cut of Pink Floyd, add a dash of Cream, a pinch of Dusty Springfield, marinade overnight”) and its subsequent rollercoaster ride up the charts in both England and the US. Making up the quartet are:
• Elf Holloway, lyricist, keyboards and guitar, comes out of a folk background
• Dean Moss, bass and lyrics, blues
• Jasper de Zoet, guitar prodigy and lyricist, psychedelic/eclectic
• Griff Griffin, drummer, jazz

The novel shifts POV amongst the band characters and their manager Levon and is cutely structured as the three albums (sides one and two) from the band — Paradise is the Road to Paradise, The Stuff of Life, The Third Planet — with each chapter a song title from the respective album.

Each of the band members is a distinctive, fully fleshed out character who grows over the course of the novel. A usefully concise sense comes from an Italian promoter’s description of their lyrics: “Your songs, Elf, they say ‘Life is sad, is joy, is emotions.’ Is universal. Jasper, your songs say, ‘Life is strange, is wonderland, a dream.’ Who does not feel so sometimes? Dean, your songs say, ‘Life is a battle, is hard, but you is not alone.’ You Greef, is a drummer intuitivo.” Mitchell similarly shifts voice in each of their section so that dropped in the middle, one can almost immediately tell without context if we’re in an Elf or a Dean chapter, a Griff or a Jasper segment.

Adding a bit more detail, Elf is middle-class, the middle-child in a family of three daughters, a bit ethereal, lacking in self-confidence, and coming to grips (eventually) with her sexuality. Dean comes out of poverty and abuse and finds power and acceptance through music and lots of hook-ups. Griff is rough, gruff, simple on the surface, and full of heart. Jasper is the schizophrenic bastard scion of a wealthy Dutch family (he doesn’t get the wealth), an “emotional dyslexic” who has since his teens suffered from a “knock-knock” in his head, a presence that drove him into a sanitarium for several years and which threatens to flare up yet again. Fans of Mitchell will also recognize Jasper’s last name from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet — more on that later.

The usual rock music story tropes are here: sex and drugs, clashes over direction and credit, unscrupulous people in the business, betrayals, triumphs and failures, highs (a song moving into the two twenty, the band performing “in the zone”) and lows (a thrown bottle, empty venues), groupies, none-too-happy parents. Even Jasper’s mental illness is part and parcel of the rock biopic, one poignantly echoed by the appearance of Syd Barrett, former lead of Pink Floyd who spiraled into his own mental pit in the late 60s. His is only one of many cameos, including but not limited to David Bowie, Diana Ross, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, and Jerry Garcia. I can’t say, therefore, that the plot elements of the novel are all that original, making this probably the least inventive of Mitchell’s novel (also the least structurally playful). But Mitchell is a master storyteller and so if the story isn’t “original,” it’s incredibly well executed. One is immediately immersed in the characters and their journey and stays fully so throughout, rooting for them both as a group and as individuals. Thanks to their varies personalities, voices, and backgrounds, the novel offers up a broad tonal range, so there are laugh-out-loud moments, thought-provoking ones, and times of biting poignancy and grief. Mitchell also scatters a number of original song lyrics throughout, each again nicely attuned to whichever band member supposedly wrote them. Readers who are also music fans will enjoy seeing how some of those songs are born and developed, as well as enjoy Mitchell’s several moment-to-moment descriptions of actual performances.

Those who have read Mitchell before know his novels take place in a shared universe, Jasper sharing a last name with a title character of a prior novel makes clear this one is part of said universe. Mitchell fans will also happily pick up on references to other characters and events and smile at the lingering appearance of one character in particular. Meanwhile, the more fantastical elements of that shared universe, involving a long-running battle between groups of immortals (most detailed in The Bone Clocks) is connected to Jasper’s mental illness but only really fully enters the novel for a single chapter toward the end. Those who haven’t read Mitchell might wonder what the hell is happening at that point, but it’s relatively short-lived. I didn’t think the novel needed that connecting chapter, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment. And it does connect in a different way to one of the seeming themes of the novel, the way life is a single-road with an infinite number of random branches one could have traveled down but didn’t, a concept physically evoked by how the band chooses (much to the dismay of their manager) to decide what order to release their potential singles — dice rolls. Similarly, another theme running through is the idea that each of us is made up of many parts that co-exist to create a “whole” identity. The band itself is the obvious metaphor for this, as is Jasper’s schizophrenia. The urge to pigeonhole people by class or gender, or to break out of that pigeonholing (even if done by oneself) runs throughout. The same idea applies to art as well, as per a discussion where an interviewer tries to nail down the category the band’s music falls into (he even calls their album schizophrenic), to which Jasper eventually replies: “You’re like a zoologist asking a platypus ‘Are you a duck-like otter? Or an ottter-like duck? Or an oviparous mammal? The platypus doesn’t care.”

Utopia Avenue doesn’t have the structural pyrotechnics or stylistic flair of some of Mitchell’s other works. But I absolutely loved it throughout, was sad to finish it, and would happily pick it up the next day to reread it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make a Utopia Avenue playlist for future listening pleasure. Let’s see, Pink Floyd, The Byrds, Baez, Traffic, Billie Holliday, Janis . . .

Rejoice, rejoice! David Mitchell finds yet another way to rearrange his collection of writing and story telling skills into a Venn diagram of pure reading pleasure. A perfect way to escape the present into a time that many of us remember - just not exactly that way. (I wonder if he and Michael Chabon have ever met?) Mitchell fans will be reading this hot off the press and those who are not yet there may want to check out the 10 year old The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel. Also available from the Philadelphia library is this author interview podcast https://libwww.freelibrary.org/podcast/episode/1027.

I always love when books bring together characters from all different walks of life and when those people are struggling musicians in 1960's London, that's even better! It reminds me of many of the biopics that have come out over the past couple of years. I didn't expect this from David Mitchell (of Cloud Atlas fame), but I loved the characters and the sense of place.