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If you read my last post, I think it’s pretty clear that I did not end up writing all the intended reviews in time for my mom’s book club selection lunch. However, I am thrilled that they picked the one I did write about, Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence, for next year’s slate! But I’ve decided to go back to my regular order instead of shoehorning those two reviews in, so next up is Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six.
Daisy Jones and the Six is a novel written as an oral history of a 1970’s Fleetwood Mac-style band, led by Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne. The novel focuses on the electric tension between Daisy and Billy, the impact of that tension on the rest of the band, and the “real reason” behind the band’s eventual break-up.
As you all know, I loved Reid’s newest book, Malibu Rising. I’d heard of Daisy Jones when it came out, as it made a huge splash, including being voted Book of the Month Club’s Book of the Year, but it didn’t really appeal to me for some reason. But after my friend, Chris, who loved it, recommended it to me, I gave it a shot.
Honestly, I found it to be pretty boring for the first two-thirds of the book. It is well-paced, and the three main characters of Billy, Daisy, and Billy’s wife, Camila, are well-developed, along with a few side characters (specifically band members Karen and Graham). However, some of the secondary characters fall flat, like Eddie, who is supposed to represent tension and creative differences in the band but just comes across as repetitive and annoying. For the most part, I just never really cared about what was happening to most of the characters. The two exceptions are Karen, who was my favorite character and who I thought was the most nuanced, subtle, and interesting person in the story, and Camila, who is the steady, confident moral center of the book (and of Billy’s life). However, I do think that it’s that steadiness and unshakeable faith that she has in Billy that lowers the stakes of the book, contributing to that sense of boringness. ***SPOILER. I REPEAT, SPOILER*** From the beginning, we know that nothing truly terrible is going to happen to Billy nor will he do anything to damage his family as long as Camila is there. And so even the moments that should feel dangerous, be dangerous, and lead to some truly sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll choices don’t, aren’t, and don’t.
I almost wanted to chalk it up to that same sex, drugs, rock-and-roll thing not really being my vibe, but I love a good music documentary, especially about this era. I kept wishing Daisy Jones was a movie not a novel. (And it will be a mini-series soon.) And that’s when it clicked, what is actually brilliant about this book. Reid has truly captured the structure, style, vibe, and language of a music documentary in novel form perfectly. She had the confidence to take a huge swing with her structure, and she knocked it out of the park. “But Elizabeth,” you say, “you just said it was pretty boring.” Well, yes, but that has more to do with the lowered stakes than with the creativity of the structure. It’s not that I didn’t want to keep going with the story. I just want to see and hear these musicians come to life on the screen instead of reading it. Her ability to so fully capture the style of these documentaries without it feeling like a gimmick is impressive.
On top of that, things really picked up in the last hundred pages or so. A revelation going into the last third of the book leads to some really beautiful exploration of the books themes: the power of relationships, how what you want and what you need are not always the same, and how we sometimes must take risks that might end up hurting others, even if it ends up being the right thing for both you and the ones you hurt. Reid also loves writing about Los Angeles and California, and in Daisy Jones, she captures the feel of Los Angeles in the 70s–that kind of seedy heat, everything throbbing with the frission of the potential for both chaos and success–with loving precision. I also love the little throughline connecting Daisy Jones to her previous book (which I haven’t read yet) and Malibu Rising.
As I read Daisy Jones and the Six, I wondered if reading Reid is like reading Amor Towles: your favorite of her books tends to be the first one you read, and the others just don’t quite live up to that first experience. That being said, I still firmly believe that Reid is an incredible and perhaps underestimated writer, and with her earlier book, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, on my to-be-read pile, I’m working on a theory about her evolution as a writer. While Daisy Jones didn’t thrill me the way it thrilled many others, I was ultimately satisfied with the reading experience. Reid is a stellar writer with a unique voice and creative approach, and you should check out Daisy Jones to decide for yourself.