I was so excited to receive this ARC from Netgalley. I've read all of David Mitchell's previous novels so was predisposed to liking this one. I waited until now out of fear of disappointment. This, though. Uthopia Avenue, In my opinion, is his best work, by far. This is a novel I am recommending to everyone I know. There are few books I feel have broad enough appeal to widely recommend. The characters, the story, the structure, all remarkable. This novel is about a band, set in 1967-68. I was 17 in 1967, David Mitchell was not yet born. I know there is plenty of historical information for him to draw on, but even so, he really nailed it. For fans of his previous works, you will see some of those characters featured in this novel. Depending on your interpretation, this novel is 85-100% based in reality. I rarely get a book hangover, but I've got one now. Everything I pick up pales in comparison.

Where do I begin? I thought I was going to be reading a book about a band in the late 1960s but with David Mitchell as the author, I should have known better. Beyond the mystical, mythical, metaphysical aspects, this book is about a band. I really enjoyed the story of this band's rise to popularity and all of their relationships. The ending was beautifully tied up in an epilogue. I fully expected to lose one of the band members but was truly surprised when the demise was placed in my lap. Fans of Daisy Jones and the Six would enjoy Utopia Avenue if they are looking to expand into literary fiction.

Though the cover of Utopia Avenue references Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks, this new David Mitchell novel feels much closer to Black Swan Green to me.

Utopia Avenue is the story of a band in the 1960’s: Dean Moss the bassist from Gravesend in Kent, folkie Elf Holloway, tormented guitar genius Jasper de Zoet, and drummer Griff Griffin who is the very archetype of every drummer you’ve ever read about. Canadian Levon Frankland brings the four together and they do what bands do in novels: they struggle, they play some bad gigs, some good ones, and then some better ones. They get a record deal, they build a following, they tour, first in the UK, then Europe, and finally America. Band members fight their individual demons (except Griff, who as a drummer doesn’t really have demons) - some from the past, some new ones from the present. Success comes calling and they deal with it in different ways.

There are some weirdly clunky moments. Everyone the band meets turns out to be someone famous (favorite line “Chuffing heck, it’s Jimi Hendrix”) - Brian Jones, David Bowie, Janis Jopin, Leonard Cohen and many more, all drift through and converse with different band members. Jasper’s mental illness (or is it?) reaches a weird resolution.

Yet somehow, even with all these grumbles, I got hooked by the novel and by these characters and felt myself truly immersed in their presents and their futures. Even as I rolled by eyes as yet another 60’s celebrity strolled through, I could feel my involvement in this world. I became completely invested in the three main band members and found myself absorbed in each of their narrative threads. They felt wholly real to me and my mood moved along with theirs.

Would I recommend it? I’m finding this really difficult to rate - 5 stars for my intense reaction to it, but 2 stars for trotting out old cliches? I’d say it depends on your tolerance of recycling of rock band tropes versus how you feel about vividly real characters.

Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

The British music band Utopia Avenue was born out of improbability, from a manager’s hunch and taking advantage of another band’s spoils. Jazz-trained drummer Peter Griffin, genius guitarist Jasper de Zoet, and world-class bassist Dean Moss were brought together by an eager manager with great talent for spotting and otherwise little career experience. They added folk singer and keyboardist Elf Holloway, who left her “quasi-successful” solo career to join the band. Their chemistry in the jam practice sessions was undeniable, but would that translate to a world stage? Their first presentations were derisible, but little by little they gained a following and placed a hit in the “top twenty” musical chart. Soon they were cavorting with the likes of Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and a Beatle. But the era in which they flourished, late 1960s, was filled with all sorts of pitfalls: easy drug availability, and the boiling cauldron of political rage threatening to spill over.

Utopia Avenue is so juicy, fun and addictive that one will feel compelled to finish it in one sitting—however difficult that may be—, which would rather fit the flow of the story as there are many flashbacks and past history of characters in each chapter, interspersed with the passages relating events in real time (c. 1967-1968). The main five characters—singer/songwriter and keyboardist extraordinaire Elf Holloway, bassist Dean Moss, genius guitarist Jasper de Zoet, drummer Peter “Griff” Griffin, and manager Levon Frankland—, as well as the fleeting, secondary ones, practically jump out of the page as people that could perfectly have existed/fitted in the psychedelic, British rock and roll scene of the late 1960s. All is not music, sex, drug, and euphoria; these characters are touched by personal tragedies, madness, and major worldly events, which round up the novel making these people’s lives endearing, relatable, and all too human.

My only criticism of the novel was that too much space was allotted to drug-induced psycho-babble. I could have been OK with less of that. Also, at times the transitions between past and present were so smooth that one would not be able to discern either if interrupting the reading halfway through a chapter.

Disclaimer: I received from the publisher a free e-book via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

"Utopia Avenue" is a paradox, a contradictory phrase containing a place that does not exist and a road that does. It's the perfect name for the fabulous quartet that make up the greatest fictional, genre-defying, late 1960s-era, British band ever; and also the title to a surreal book penned by a British author known for his genre-defying meta postmodern works like the magnum opus "Cloud Atlas."

In "Utopia Avenue" — the coda to "Cloud Atlas" (2004) and "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" (2011), David Mitchell chronicles the formation and meteoric rise of an eclectic "schizophrenic" band (Is it folk? Or R&B? Or psychedelic rock 'n' roll? Or jazz? Or pop?) that can count Pink Floyd, Cream, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Bob Dylan and the Beatles among their contemporaries, but whom no one has ever heard of until now.

At the helm is Canadian manager Levon Frankland, who cobbled the group together from pieces of different puzzles.

His first recruit: the talented bassist/singer/songwriter Dean Moss, the band's 23-year-old pretty boy heartthrob from a working-class background, who — in the course of 24 hours and the first chapter of this novel — gets mugged, evicted, fired, and told that his greatest dream may come true after he meets and plays with future Utopia Avenue bandmates: former jazz drummer Peter "Griff" Griffin and esoteric Dutch guitar god/singer/songwriter Jasper de Zoet. (Yes, Jasper's a direct and illegitimate descendant to that de Zoet; his great-great-great grandfather, Jacob, was the titular character of an earlier David Mitchell book, "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.") Levon's last recruit: folk singer/pianist/songwriter prodigy Elf (short for Elizabeth Frances) Holloway — the future trans-Atlantic penpal to "Cloud Atlas's" Luisa Rey. Elf finds out her boyfriend cheated on her and her sister's engaged on the same day she meets the boys of Utopia Avenue.

"Utopia Avenue" is the answer to how to write and where ideas come from. Sometimes they're semi-quasi-autobiographical, says Elf. Sometimes they write themselves, says Jasper and Dean. Always they're anchored by a pretty great percussionist and bettered, sharpened and tuned by each other's criticisms.

Between Dean, Jasper and Elf, Utopia Avenue writes more than two dozen songs compiled in three glorious albums, describing the death of dreams, dead babies, abusive alcoholic fathers, living with schizophrenia, fame, addiction, borrowed time, love, war, apologies, freedom, acid trips, hellhounds, heartbreak and fate. Each chapter, distinctly different in voice as the song's writers, comes from song titles and describes the song's birth.

The band's first radio single "Darkroom," penned by Jasper, was inspired by a girl and a lost recording by "Cloud Atlas's" Robert Frobisher. Dean's "Roll Away the Stone" was written after Dean was detained in an Italian prison. Elf's "Prove It" was her rebuttal and account of when her cheater boyfriend stole one of her songs and sold it for money. You think each song and chapter is your favorite only until you hear the next track. 

But Utopia Avenue is a paradox — an ageless band you can't really listen to. So you compile a playlist of those who advised, partied and inspired Utopia Avenue, and wish it into being, imagining the records of Utopia Avenue spinning over and over in our axis.

Disclaimer: David Mitchell’s “Utopia Avenue” will be published on July 14, 2020. I received a free eARC of “Utopia Avenue” from NetGalley and Random House in exchange for this honest review.

David Mitchell never disappoints – though the plot, themes, and characters of this book were less compelling to me personally than those of his previous novels, his prose style and overall mastery of his craft are as pleasurable as ever.

Utopia Avenue is the story of the genesis of a band in the late sixties. It tells the story of the four band members and the band's manager. Although the story was familiar and some of the plot points predictable, the author's skill in delving deep into the characters' histories made this a thoroughly enjoyable read. Mitchell's ability to write in such a wide variety of voices never ceases to amaze me. And this book featured one of my favorite David Mitchell hallmarks - callbacks to his previous works. This will be recommended to fans of Daisy Jones and the Six as well as anyone interested in rock and roll history. And bonus points for delving into the mind of a neurodiverse character.

To start with, I think David Mitchell is the greatest writer currently working. That being said, in my opinion, his previous two novels didn't quite reach the heights of some of his other work such as "Cloud Atlas" and "Black Swan Green." So I am thrilled to say Mitchell is back!

"Utopia Avenue" is a tremendous book. It's funny, full of wonderfully characters and, obviously, the sheer quality of the writing is amazing. I have enjoyed the recent look back to the late 60s in pop culture (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, recaps of the moon landing, anniversary of Woodstock etc.), so it is wonderful to see what Mitchell does with this particular turf.

The novel is about London in the late 60s and covers a three-piece band called Utopia Avenue. The mix of David Mitchell and rock 'n' roll made my expectations incredibly high for this novel. I am so happy to say he exceeded expectations. Enjoy!

Reading this I had some flashbacks to Iain Banks' <i>Espedair Street</i>, even down to the fact that both Weird and Dean are bassists. Of course, given that it's Mitchell, there's a little "something" that isn't quite fiction here, but unlike other books it's almost unnoticeable and those who haven't read his other works will have no problem understanding what's going on.

The group Utopia Avenue's rise in the late 60s leads to many cameos by famous people: David Bowie, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead, among others. They're done cleverly, at appropriate moments in the narrative and in those people's careers rather than slotted in randomly to show the group's popularity. And what the group's members go through also feels real - Elf's struggles with her boyfriend, for example, or Jasper's emotional dyslexia (a new term to me, but one that really hit home for many reasons).

eARC provided by publisher.

This book will appeal to the following people:

—Those with an interest in the music scene in London and LA in the late 1960s
—Those who have read and enjoyed Mitchell’s “Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet”
—Those who enjoyed “Slade House”

I don’t think this is one of David Mitchell’s best books, but I do admire his obsession with reincarnation and eternal return.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.
The opening scene, we begin en media res… Dean falling and thinking that’ll bloody hurt… and it bloody hurts… in the first couple of pages we already get that Dean’s in a hurry, that he needs money, that it’s rent day… Then these words “Mrs. Nevitt is waiting in her parlor like a giant spider”
Yes. perfect. You’ve got me. Will read further.

A departure from books I have read from this author. Loved it. So biased he wrote a book about music set in Britain in the 60’s where all my own personal vinyl lives. Mentions of the characters meeting Pink Floyd and an unknown David Bowie sent me into fan girl screams. I loved every moment and these characters. Wonderful book.

Kind of like Steve Erickson's "Zeroville", but for rock n' roll in the 60s. Ties in heavily to the David Mitchell Universe, specifically "Bone Clocks" and "The Thousand Autumns of..." Def more of a crowd-pleaser, but Mitchell's writing is so strong it sucks you right in.

This is a brilliant alternate historical fiction!
It's an antidote to Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood."
Utopia Avenue is a work of the particular kind of nostalgia that Svetlana Boym calls Reflective Nostalgia. The narrative relives and mods that late 1960s as a way to sift through the ruins for remainders of the aspirations for better worlds that were thriving then, particularly in conjunction with the London music scene.
Like so many other David Mitchell novels, Utopia Avenue explores a wide range of people's experiences of what is meaningful in life--how to decide to take a risk, how to navigate being open and closed to others, lots of kinds of others, and how to nourish one's past when that past has some deep pains, lost loves, and ideas from which one has long strayed.
A beautiful book for always but especially for reading in a pandemic.

This one wasn’t for me, I’m afraid. Not bad writing, of course, simply not the kind of novel I enjoy reading. I’m sure fans of David Mitchell will very much enjoy it. I’d hoped to enjoy it more, as a huge fan of music, but I found his writing style to be quite inaccessible.

<i>With thanks to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.</i>

My first David Mitchell book was not, as is likely the case for many of his fans, <i>Cloud Atlas</i> but rather the darker, weirder, and more Mitchell mythos-laden novel <i>The Bone Clocks</i>. It hooked me immediately, has has every other Mitchell book I've ever cracked the cover of.

Mitchell has a way of world-building that is intricately crafted but has the feel of being effortlessly created -- he's attributed writing novels to building with legos, combining separate, smaller blocks together to create larger, interconnected structures that feature recurring characters and themes that weave together despite very disparate time periods. It's how he can write books that span generations and all parts of the globe, from a Dutch-administered Japanese island in 18th century Japan, to a near-future coastal Ireland, to 1980s London and modern-day America and have everything, somehow, make sense.

In his latest novel, the soon-to-be-released <i>Utopia Avenue</i>, Mitchell turns his eye to the music scene of the late 1960s, from the Summer of Love through 1969, an era that is fascinating and rich with both emotion and pathos. The book tells the history of the fictional eponymous band -- Elf Holloway, vocals and keys; Dean Moss, guitar and vocals; Griff Griffin, drums; and Jasper De Zoet, guitars and vocals -- from its formation in a dive venue in central London through its subsequent rise, culminating in a hazy, fateful sun-drenched tour to America.

The novel is structured, amusingly, like a series of albums. Each part of the novel focuses on one side of one of Utopia Avenue's three LPs, with each chapter titled as one of the band's songs and featuring a shifting perspective of one of the major characters -- the four band members and, briefly, Canadian manager Levon Frankland. This is the story of the life cycle of a 1960s psychadelic-folk-pop-blues band, and it is riveting from beginning to its inevitable and emotionally satisfying end. The structure of the novel is clever, but also provides insight along the way into how each of the songs came into being through the individual and shared experience of the bandmates.

And what experiences they are. <i>Utopia Avenue is</i> jam-packed with pop-culture references from the time period in which it inhabits, and the various characters interact with a who's-who of musical, historical, and counter-cultural figures from the late '60s, including but in no way limited to Keith Richards, John Lennon, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass, Francis Bacon, Leonard Cohen. And so, so many more. These titans of 1960s counter-culture wander through the book effortlessly, oftentimes leaving the main characters as breathlessly star-struck as the reader. It would almost feel like Mitchell is trying too hard with all the name-dropping if it wasn't so much damn fun.

But this is a David Mitchell novel. For those who are wondering whether <i>Utopia Avenue</i> ties into the shared universe and mythology that encompasses his other books, the answer is a resounding "yes." The nature of Mitchell's writing means that his books can be picked up and read in any order, but the reader's understanding of the interconnected threads become so much richer if you have previously read his past novels. It is not necessary to have read <i>The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet</i> though UA's connection to it is obvious by the surname of Utopia Avenue's guitar virtuoso (as well as one incredibly important late chapter). Prior familiarity with <i>Cloud Atlas</i>, <i>Slade House</i> and especially <i>The Bone Clocks</i> are not technically required, but greatly enhance the understanding and appreciation of <i>Utopia Avenue</i>.

Characters, both major and minor, from Mitchell's previous works appear or are referenced throughout, causing Mitchell devotees like myself to nearly shriek when they appear. Likewise, those familiar with the... let's just call it "more fantastical" elements of Mitchell's novels will not be disappointed, directly tying into the odd "emotional dyslexia" of one of the main characters.

*HERE THERE BE (MILD BUT SIGNIFICANT) SPOILERS*

A decidedly in-exhaustive list includes:

<spoiler>
• Jasper, who encounters, listens to, and appreciates Robert Frobisher's "Cloud Atlas Sextet"

• Aphra Booth, an Australian critic who appears briefly in The Bone Clocks

• Dean Moss is from Gravesend (as is Holly Sykes from TBC) and the Sykes family pub The Captain Marlowe is a setting for an early Utopia Avenue gig

• Luisa Rey, Spyglass Magazine reporter from Cloud Atlas and also a lover of Elf Holloway

• A (very) young Crispin Hershey, erstwhile "Dessicated Embryos" author and foil for one Holly Sykes

• A certain moon-grey cat

• And not least, members of both cabals of psychoesoterica, including Horology and the Shaded Way, and epitomized by the then-current incarnation of Marinus</spoiler>

The end result is an incredibly satisfying read, a novel that will no doubt continue to illuminate with more and more buried references and insights upon re-reads. I'm already excited to imagine which Utopia Avenue characters Mitchell will use in his next novel, as he continues to interweave his books together, Russian-doll style. If this is (or will be) your first Mitchell book, do not stop here -- go back and pick up literally any of his previously-released works, with the knowledge that your reading of it and your understanding of <i>Utopia Avenue</i> will be enhanced in the process. And then read <Utopia Avenue</i> again.

I would give six stars if I could.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3231600250

I loved “Utopia Avenue” by David Mitchell and couldn’t wait to read it each night. I highly recommend it if you want to take an imaginary trip down memory lane to the music scene in the 60’s and understand the life of struggling musicians who manage to make it to the big time.

The story follows the formation of a rock/folk band where each of the musicians was personally selected by their band manager for their individual talents. Elf Holloway, folk singer and pianist, Dean Moss, blues bassist, Griff Griffin, jazz drummer and Jasper de Zoet, guitar virtuoso -- all come together with a unique sound and voice to their own surprise and that of their fans. Understanding the different ways each of the three song writers discover their words was enlightening.

The lives of each member of the group is explored in depth and the author alternated chapters to write from the perspective of each of the main characters. I loved each character and the way their life stories unfolded and intersected. The most unusual of the four is Jasper, a young man struggling with serious mental health issues. You join his world of aural hallucinations and interesting characters that take up residence in his mind.

Cameo appearances are made by all the big musical stars of the time which is a fun and light part of the book.

Somehow David Mitchell manages to pull this all together in an engaging story written brilliantly.
Thanks to Netgalley for an early release of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Think Daisy Jones and the Six, but in the Mitchellverse! I am a huge David Mitchell fan and I absolutely love his expanded universe, but he's been pretty quite since Slade House in 2015 - with good reason, apparently. This is a mammoth book, following multiple characters through the 60s. There's an element of pop culture fanfic going on with the lead characters interacting with lots of musical icons but I found that part of the fun (though I could see how it would be grating). The Mitchellverse section is small - I suppose it would be confusing if you haven't read The Bone Clocks (especially) and the Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, but it's only a small part of the book and infinitely rewarding if you have. I found myself thinking about all of the people that are going to discover David Mitchell through this book and how lucky they are to consume his books for the very first time.

3.5 stars

For about 80% of the novel, "Utopia Avenue" seems to be about one thing, and then, briefly, it becomes about something else. This flight of fantasy seems to exist because David Mitchell's readers would expect but it's not totally out of place. "Utopia Avenue" is set in the 60s, right?

This is the story of an unusual band. "Utopia Avenue" is a combo of folk, jazz, rock, and other worldly inspiration. The four band members, Elf, the singer and keyboardist, drummer Griff, and guitarists Jasper and Dean create something special under the creative hand of manager Levon. There's a lot of name dropping and parties--too much--but where the book comes to life is when the band just sits down to play. They like each other, support each other, and make beautiful music together.

I was never transported by this book, but I did enjoy it. There are a lot of qualifiers in this review and that sums up the reading experience pretty well. I could have stopped at any time, but didn't.

Nonetheless, thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for approval to read & review!

~~Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader

This is my first time reading something by David Mitchell, and from the sound of it, Utopia Avenue is a bit of a departure for him. By and large, this is a realistic, historical fiction novel about the 60s band Utopia Avenue. It features cameos from contemporaries like Leonard Cohen and Jimi Hendrix and is a vivid portrait of the British rock scene at that time.

What I loved most about this book were the characters. Even when I wasn't reading the book, I found myself thinking of them, most often Jasper de Zoet and Elf Holloway. These characters are drawn with empathy and understanding, and even the more minor characters have stuck with me. They all felt whole, like their lives expanded far beyond the pages of the book.

I was, however, thrown by the shift from standard social realism to, eventually, a psychological trip through one character's brain, not triggered by LSD. I think if I were more familiar with Mitchell's work, this wouldn't have struck me so much, since it seems like the majority of his books feature an element of the fantastic or magical realist. For me, though, this section added to the overall slightly-bloated feeling of the novel. There is absolutely no reason for this book to be almost 600 pages! I fully believe 100 pages or more could be cut and the novel would be better for it.

Despite these (somewhat minor) criticisms, however, I ultimately really enjoyed the experience of reading Utopia Avenue. It was what I had hoped Taylor Jenkins Reid's Daisy Jones and the Six would be. I would absolutely recommend it to others, especially those who enjoy fictional celebrity memoirs as much as I do. Thank you to Netgalley, Random House, and David Mitchell for the e-ARC.